


Smells Like Teen Spirit

by MitchMatchedSocks



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Drug Use, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Slow Build, Underage Drinking, dumb teenagers, mild bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:04:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9537104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MitchMatchedSocks/pseuds/MitchMatchedSocks
Summary: Kyungsoo looked down at Jongin’s beautiful face. He could imagine how good he would look with white smoke curling from his full lips, with wind whipping through his hair as gold light bathed his tan skin. Such careless, glamorous freedom. Kyungsoo felt like Nick from Gatsby, if Nick had ever cradled Gatsby’s head in his lap while Gatsby pulled him headfirst into his careless, glamorous world.Written for the top!soo fest. It won the award for best Kyungsoo! I'm very proud.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This plays off of a lot of very American high school story tropes. So if you like (bad) good teen movies, here you go. Its a grossly inaccurate depiction of high school/being gay in high school, but its really just a teen drama, so just roll with it.
> 
> Also I promise I love the Twice girls, especially Jihyo. They're kind of comedic villains in this, but I think they're probably lovely irl.
> 
> This fic is available in Brazilian Portuguese [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15378966?view_full_work=true). Translated by twitter user [@porcelana_r2](https://twitter.com/porcelana_r2).

“I can’t fucking believe him. Look at him! This is the same kid who insisted he was straight last week!” 

Kyungsoo stopped chewing at Baekhyun’s outburst and watched as he gestured furiously across the lunch room. At a table in the distance a very smug Park Chanyeol bounced a giggling Kim Jongin on his knee and wrapped both arms around his waist. 

“I can’t be anything more than his dirty little secret mistake that he made that one time, ‘scuse me, three times, but he’ll do this shit with another boy in public.” 

Kyungsoo sighed heavily as Baekhyun stole another fry off Kyungsoo’s plate when he thought Kyungsoo was looking at the two boys across the room. “You know the whole school treats Jongin like an exception or something. I think all the athletes have learned to treat him just like the other cheerleading royalty because more of the hot girls will fuck them if they do.” 

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo looked on as the cheerleading captain, Jihyo, and her entourage flounced around the two boys and joined in on the snuggling, cooing over how cute they were with Jongin cuddled up on Chanyeol’s lap. 

“They’re all so fucking shallow.” Baekhyun angrily raked his hair into place and stared resolutely down at his salad. 

“If you think Chanyeol’s so shallow, why are you so invested in him? He’s a dick. Let it go.” 

Baekhyun didn’t respond. Kyungsoo didn’t know how to deal with serious, angry Baekhyun. He was far more used to countering Baekhyun’s boisterous wit with his own grumpy jabs. While they were both usually sensible enough to avoid the need for emotional support, when teenage angst did rear its ugly head, they really didn’t have anyone but each other. Kyungsoo didn’t consider himself terribly equipped for the job.

“He’s hotter than me.” 

“Jesus, Baek, what do you want from me? I’m not going to sit here and tell you you’re pretty.” 

“He’s prettier too. Sweeter. Cuter.” 

“At least you’re smarter? Funnier?” 

“I don’t think Chanyeol cares about smarter. He’s kind of an idiot himself.” 

“He’s definitely an idiot” He looked back over at where Chanyeol was flirting shamelessly with the Jihyo while Kim Jongin played with his hair. The dancer said something, smirk curling gracefully across his face, and the whole group burst into laughter. 

“Oh look, he’s funnier than me too.” 

Kyungsoo sighed and looked back at his pouting friend. “I highly doubt it.”

Baekhyun glanced up at him with the start of a playful smile. “Well I’ll be damned, Soo, that almost sounded like a compliment.” 

Kyungsoo snorted and fidgeted in his seat. “You looked pathetic. I wasn’t about to start kicking you while you were down.” 

“Aw, you do care.” 

“Shut up.” 

He looked back over at the other table. Chanyeol basked in the attention of all the girls who usually flocked to attractive, charismatic, talented Jongin like moths. He figured Jongin must be the ultimate gay best friend. Someone hot and fashionable with all the benefits of girl talk, who would also make out with them for fun. 

“I hate him,” Baekhyun said.

“You don’t even know the guy. You’re jealous.” 

“And?” 

Kyungsoo sighed. “And stop feeling sorry for yourself.” He rose to throw his trash away. On his way back he saw Kim Jongin strolling out of the cafeteria hand in hand with a pretty blond girl, head thrown back with an easy confidence that Kyungsoo didn’t understand. How could anybody in high school look so at ease in their own skin like that? Baekhyun was already far more outwardly confident then almost anyone he knew, but even he looked ready to curl in on himself and hide in his room for a year as he stared across the room at where Chanyeol chatted with his friends. His excited gestures and wiggly eyebrows could only mean a discussion of which girls in the recently departed group Chanyeol planned on fucking. Kyungsoo watched him glance up and catch Baekhyun’s dejected expression from across the room. His gummy smile faltered as Baekhyun sighed and turned away. Teenagers were stupid. Crushes were stupid. Kyungsoo was glad not to have any. 

 

First Period on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays was American Literature. Kyungsoo sat at his seat at the back of the classroom and sank into the protection of his overlarge hoody, as far as possible from where Kim Jongin and Kris Wu and a couple of cute, sporty girls sat in the front row. 

There were always a lot of things he could say in that class during discussions, except that he didn’t want to start up arguments with loud-mouthed students whose definition of symbolism was the mocking jay in _The Hunger Games_ , and whose knowledge of irony extended to internet memes. 

The teacher was a friendly, pushover type who definitely smoked too much dope in the seventies. Kyungsoo liked her. 

“Alright class, I know you all want to sleep, but please keep your heads off the desks for the next ten minutes. Today I’m giving you your next project. It’s a big one. You’re going to have to spend a lot of time on it. You have over a month to do it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start until the night before.” 

More work was daunting, of course, but another opportunity to make his classmates feel stupid was definitely welcome. 

“It will be a group project.” 

The class erupted into excited murmurs. About three different people started nudging Jongin’s shoulder. Jongin ignored them all in favor of tugging sweetly at Kris’s shirt, and Kris turned and mouthed ‘sorry’ at the cute girl who he had been planning to partner with. Nobody even looked at Kyungsoo. 

Fuck.

“I will be choosing your partners.”

Good? That at least spared him the humiliation of raising his hand and admitting that he was the only person in the class who didn’t have a partner. All the idiots at the front of the class whined. 

“You and your partner will choose a book from a list and do a joint presentation on it. I’m going to give you your partners first, and then you will get together and choose a book.” 

There were a couple people in the class that Kyungsoo would be fine with. Namely the other people who hid in their hoodies at the back of the classroom. He didn’t get any of those. He got Kim Jongin. 

Kyungsoo blinked in surprise as Jongin turned to Kris, looking confused, and no doubt asked who the fuck Do Kyungsoo was. Kris shrugged. Kyungsoo sat back and took a few deep breaths, feeling sheepish, and reminding himself that he didn’t buy into the Kim Jongin hype, and there was definitely no reason to be star-struck and nervous about Jongin being his partner. He glanced around and realized that more than a few people were looking back at him with envy. He felt heat rush to his face. When did the classroom get so hot? Kyungsoo fought his hoody off. It got caught on his glasses. 

An embarrassing twenty or so seconds later he emerged, glasses-less, to find himself face to face with a suspiciously Jongin-looking blur sitting turned around in the desk in front of him. 

“Um—hi.” He blinked and the image focused a little. Definitely Jongin. 

“You’re Kyungsoo, right?” 

“That’s me.” 

Kim Jongin was still attractive, even when he looked all fuzzy. Fuzzy Jongin extended a hand over the desk. Kyungsoo took it and gave him a firm handshake. His hand was warm and dry, his dark skin contrasting with Kyungsoo’s pasty white, clammy skin. 

Kyungsoo put his glasses back on. Jongin’s face came into glorious focus, and Kyungsoo was tempted to take his glasses right back off again. Jongin’s lips twitched up like he knew the effect he had. Little shit. Baekhyun was right. Maybe Kyungsoo should hate him. 

“Okay, so this project…” 

“Why don’t you wear contacts?” 

“Huh?” 

“I mean, the glasses are cute. You kind of look like Harry Potter. But why don’t you just use contacts instead of wearing glasses? I wear contacts. I have a pair of glasses, but I would never wear them in front of other people.” He leaned on his hand and Kyungsoo could see the graceful line of his collarbone down the collar of his shirt. 

Kyungsoo frowned. “W-what’s wrong with glasses?” 

“Nothing!” Jongin corrected quickly, eyes widening. “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t wear them. I just look terrible in mine, and I mean I guess you kind of look better without yours, but they’re cute! I said they were cute right? I just think people look better without glasses.” 

Kyungsoo wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond to all that, except he doubted Jongin looked terrible in anything. “Let’s… pick a book then?” 

Jongin rested his chin on his arms on the desk and pouted up at Kyungsoo. His lips were really full and soft looking. “Are you mad at me now?” 

“What? No I’m not mad.” Just confused. 

“Then why didn’t you answer my question?” He looked up through his eyelashes, his eyes dark and expressive. Kyungsoo had never seen him so close. It was kind of overwhelming. He swallowed and tried to sit further back in his chair. 

“Um. I don’t wear contacts because I don’t really want to bother with them and I don’t really care about how I look. I’m fine with glasses.” 

“Oh. You look cute without them though.” He reached forward and plucked the glasses off Kyungsoo’s nose, and Kyungsoo was too surprised to lash out at being called cute. Or having his glasses stolen. Why the hell did Jongin think they were close enough that he could take his fucking glasses off his face?

Jongin put Kyungsoo’s glasses on his own face instead, and then snickered and pulled his phone out of nowhere, held it up, and snapped a selfie of the two of them. 

“Cute. Here are your glasses back. I can’t really see with both them and my contacts on. Gimme your phone number. I’ll send that picture to you.” 

Kyungsoo slowly slid his glasses back onto his nose and looked down at Jongin’s phone, which had been thrust in front of his face. In the picture he looked confused and surprised, which translated into a rather sour expression, and Jongin smiled in the foreground, looking adorable with Kyungsoo’s thick rimmed glasses perched on his nose. 

“So about this project.” 

“Its all business with you, isn’t it? The more time we take on this, the less time we have to listen to lectures.” He opened up a new contact for Kyungsoo to type his information into. 

“You always sleep through the lectures anyway.” 

“You’ve been watching what I do, Kyungsoo?” He glanced up with a flirty smirk and Kyungsoo blushed despite himself. 

“I sit at the back of the classroom every day and I’m always awake, so generally I know who sleeps through every class.” 

He must have sounded more defensive than he meant to, because Jongin’s eyebrows shot up, smirk still firmly in place. “Relax, Soo, I’m not accusing you of anything. Everybody watches what I do. It’s not weird if you’ve noticed a few things.” He winked and Kyungsoo tried to figure out if further defense would be a trap or not. 

“I haven’t been watching you.” 

“You were watching me today at lunch.” His dark eyes twinkled with amusement. Kyungsoo glared. 

“I wasn’t watching you.” 

“One of the girls then? Chanyeol?” 

“And I wasn’t watching for the reason you seem to think. Can we get to the project please?” 

Jongin pouted again. “I’m just teasing.” 

“Its fine. Project.” He looked down to focus on typing his number into Jongin’s phone. Hopefully the conversation would switch. 

“I want to do _The Great Gatsby_.” Kyungsoo blinked in surprise. He hadn’t actually expected Jongin to have an opinion. 

“Oh. Is that on the list?”

Jongin pointed to the front of the classroom where a list of books was projected up onto the screen. Kyungsoo skimmed the list. Most were books he predictably hadn’t read. Some of them were books he definitely wanted to read. He’d already read _The Great Gatsby_. 

“Are you sure? Someone else has probably already picked that.” 

“We don’t pick until everyone is ready. Then she draws teams out of a hat who gets to pick first.” 

The teacher must have said that while Kyungsoo was stuck in his hoodie. 

“Okay so what if someone else chooses it before us?” Because they undoubtedly would, and then they could read what Kyungsoo wanted. 

“They won’t.” He turns around and yells to the classroom at large, “Dibs on Gatsby!” 

“No dibs!” The teacher yelled, but Kyungsoo knew by the looks on everyone’s faces that Gatsby was secured. 

“Fine, we’ll do Gatsby.” 

“Thanks Soo!” Jongin’s face split into a beautiful, toothy grin that made Gatsby really not seem like such a bad choice. His eyes curled into cute little half moons. The sunlight shined in his hair Kyungsoo swallowed down the odd lump in his throat and tried to remember that he hated when people called him Soo. 

Kyungsoo spent the rest of class marveling over how Jongin could make lounging in a school desk sexy. It was something about the way he stretched out his long legs and twisted towards Kyungsoo, and then let his head drop back to reveal the long column of his throat. He licked his lips and looked up at Kyungsoo through his eyelashes. Kyungsoo caught glimpses of a lot of his classmates glancing back at them as Jongin bent over Kyungsoo’s desk to get a better look at his notes, Kris and the girls included. They looked amused more than jealous, like it was hilariously confusing that Jongin would flirt with Kyungsoo. He glared daggers at Kris until the boy noticed and gave him a douchy what’s up nod. 

At the end of class Kyungsoo watched Jongin slide gracefully into Kris’s space and attach himself to his side. His slender dancer’s body looked even better next to Kris’s gangly basketball-player build. He looked up at Kris with a sexy smolder and pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and furrowed his eyebrows. Kyungsoo felt his mouth go dry as Kris’s hand slid low on the boy’s waist. The girls off to the side blushed and giggled, and something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy curled in Kyungsoo’s gut. 

 

When he got to Baekhyun’s house that afternoon, Baekhyun was still sulking, lying face down on his bed with his phone drooping limply from his fingers. 

“I think Chanyeol is hooking up with Kim Jongin.” 

“Probably. I’m pretty sure Kim Jongin is hooking up with Kris Wu too, so I doubt that means Chanyeol is off the market.” 

“It does if Chanyeol is just doing casual hook ups. If I get him I don’t want to share him.” 

“Hmm.” 

He sat down with his legs thrown over Baekhyun’s and dug out his homework and hoped if he ignored the problem it would go away. 

“He texted me an hour ago.” 

Dammit. “What did he say?” 

“He sent me a meme.” 

Kyungsoo fought a facepalm. “Was it a meme that… meant something?” 

“Fucking—No. He’s just acting like nothing is wrong. He sent me a fucking meme, Kyungsoo. A dumb one.” 

“That’s redundant.” 

“He’s such an idiot.” 

“Yet you like him.” 

“I really like him, Soo.” 

Kyungsoo got started on his homework as Baekhyun buried his face in a pillow and groaned loudly for several minutes. Then there was blissful silence. 

“How should I respond?” 

“Tell him to fuck off.” 

“I’m going to send a dick pic.” He rolled over and started undoing his pants.

“What?! What the fuck, Baek, why would you do that?” 

“Because he can’t avoid the problem if it’s staring him in the face.” Kyungsoo flinched and looked away as Baekhyun whipped it out. 

“Dude, not with me right here. Can we think about this? I don’t think that’ll fix anything. If you want to tell him something is wrong, just tell him. Use your words.” 

Baekhyun put his phone down and tucked himself back into his pants. “Maybe you’re right. I’d have to get hard first anyway and you’re right here…” 

“Yeah thanks for noticing.” He returned stubbornly to his homework.

“Maybe if I just send him a really good selfie.” 

“Just tell him you’re mad or something.” 

They lapse back into silence and Kyungsoo finally gets some work done. 

“I sent him, ‘stop pretending that nothing is wrong.’” 

“That sounds like a good start.” 

A few minutes later Baekhyun snorted loudly and rolled back over. “He asked what I meant.” 

“Don’t respond.” 

“Okay.” 

He looked so pathetic with his arm slung over his eyes and his phone resting on his chest like he was waiting for a phone call that wouldn’t come. Kyungsoo felt bad that he couldn’t help more. Maybe if he distracted him with small talk. 

“So… We got put in partner projects in class today and my partner is Kim Jongin.” 

“Ugh, seriously? That sucks. What’s he like? Slutty? Pretty? Cooler than me? I swear to god if you ditch me for him I’ll kill you.” 

“What? No! Baek, seriously stop feeling sorry for yourself. I’m not going to do that. He flirts with me. I don’t know if I’m misreading, or that’s just the way he is, or he’s just fucking with me because I’m the nerd at the back of the class.” 

“I’ll place my bets on that latter. He seems like a bitch.” 

“He was nice enough. Unless that was just part of the fucking with me.” He paused for a minute. “Do you think we need more friends?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“At this point I feel like we’re very reliant on each other.” 

Baekhyun laughed and kicked out at Kyungsoo’s legs. “Considering that I only like you for your NPR radio announcer voice, yeah we should probably get more friends.”

 

“Do you have your book yet?” 

Jongin put his head up off Kyungsoo’s desk and sleepily shook his head. He ran a hand through his hair. At fell right back down into his half lidded eyes.

“Okay, well I have mine. There’s more in the library. I can lend you mine until you get one. I’ve already read it.” 

“Really? Awesome. We’re prepared. I watched the movie.” He yawned and leaned heavily on one of his arms, eyes sliding closed. 

“Hey, are you okay? You seem really tired.” 

“I was up kind of late last night.” The statement came with a sly smile and a glance at where Kris Wu across the room was bragging loudly to his project partner about how much he scored at basketball games. The girl didn’t seem to care much about basketball. She looked mystified. Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows and leaned in conspiratorially. 

“Is his dick as big as he advertises?” 

Jongin blinked at him in obvious surprise and Kyungsoo threw in a goofy eyebrow wiggle just for fun. Jongin smirked and chuckled, shaking his head. “I mean it is, but he doesn’t know how to use it very well.” 

“Ouch. That sounds like a rough combination.” 

“It was still fun. He’s hot. Definitely straight though. I don’t think he’s cut out for butt stuff. Too impatient.” 

“Could have fooled me with the way he looks at you.” 

Jongin smiled and reached up to take Kyungsoo’s glasses off again. “I guess I just have that effect on people.” He winked. Fucking winked, and gazed up with a sleepy smile that Kyungsoo was kind of happy he couldn’t see clearly. Even so, he was glad of his legendary poker face. 

“What about you, Soo? What are you cut out for?” He slid the tip of Kyungsoo’s glasses past his lips and began to nibble them playfully. Kyungsoo leaned back in his seat with raised eyebrows. 

“I’m not cut out for much more than video games and studying, to be honest. Get those out of your mouth. You don’t know where they’ve been.” 

“My mouth has been far worse places, trust me.” 

Kyungsoo made what he hoped was only a vaguely disgusted face and took his glasses out of Jongin’s mouth. “Well in that case don’t put your mouth all over my glasses, I don’t know where it’s been.” 

“Can’t you guess?” 

“I’d rather not, Jongin. Let’s keep it classy.” 

“You’re cute, Soo.” 

Kyungsoo pursed his lips in annoyance as Jongin tucked his face into his arms on top of Kyungsoo’s desk and immediately drifted off to sleep. Across the room, Kyungsoo caught Kris and a couple girls staring and smirking with their heads close together, and Kris gave him a mockingly enthusiastic wave and the girls cracked up. Kyungsoo flipped him off. If Kris wanted to make enemies, then so be it. 

The rest of the class chattered together about things that definitely weren’t the project, and Kyungsoo sat in silence while his partner napped. He found he didn’t mind sitting quietly and letting Jongin doze. The other boy looked so vulnerable with his face slack with sleep, all his gentle beauty laid bare. He was too pretty for his own good. And the way he passed out on Kyungsoo’s desk made it almost seem like he trusted Kyungsoo to watch over him. To keep the Baekhyuns of the world from drawing dicks on his face. 

Or he was still just fucking with him. The way Kris Wu smirked and muttered behind his hand to a set of frantically giggling blond girls as they all looked back and watched did nothing to reassure him. Oh well. Nothing said he had to give his English project partner any power over his emotions. 

Jongin’s phone lit up where it was sitting on the desk, and Kyungsoo glanced down to see a messenger notification pop up, followed closely by a second. 

**Don’t get his hopes up, babe. That’s mean.**

**Oops, hi Kyungsoo ;D**

Kris Wu and his friends laughed hysterically from the front of the room as Kyungsoo gave his best ‘you’re fucking stupid’ face and fought down a twinge of discomfort.

At the end of class Jongin woke up and sleepily rubbed his eyes, looking cute and pouty, and blinked away the uncomfortable dryness of his contacts before checking his phone. Kyungsoo was happy to see him frown and turn to glare at Kris before looking back at the messages. 

“Oh, did you see…” 

“Yeah, I saw them.” 

Jongin looked apologetically through his eyelashes and pouted some more. “Kris is a dick.” 

“Maybe its part of the advertising. He’s trying to let everyone know how big is dick is by being a giant dick himself.”

Jongin laughed. “I’ll give him shit for it. I’m sorry if he made you uncomfortable or something…” 

“It’s fine, Jongin, you don’t have to defend me. I know it wouldn’t make a difference.” 

Jongin sighed. “Yeah, but it wouldn’t be right to just say nothing. I don’t know why he’s being mean. There’s really no reason…” He ran a hand anxiously through his hair, and Kyungsoo watched with envy as it all fell perfectly back into place. “I’ll let you know when I get my book.” 

“Okay. I’ll see you next class.” 

“Bye, Soo.” He reached up and brushed a hand through Kyungsoo’s hair with an affectionate smile, and then sauntered off before Kyungsoo could remember that he didn’t like people touching his head or calling him Soo. Jongin’s ass looked cute in those tight pants. 

 

On Thursday afternoon Kyungsoo got a text from an unknown number. 

**I got it!**

It was followed by a picture of Jongin standing in front of the Barnes and Nobles Starbucks with _The Great Gatsby_ held up next to his face. Kyungsoo saved the contact before messaging back. 

**Cool. Can you read the first four chapters before class on Monday?**

He got back very put-upon, distressed emoji. 

**Come on, the chapters aren’t that long.**

Jongin answered with another pouty emoji. 

**From: Kim Jongin  
I know, I’ll read them.**

Three hours later he got another message. 

**From: Kim Jongin  
This is hard.**

**Reading is hard?**

**From: Kim Jongin  
Focusing is hard. This is boring and confusing.**

**You’re the one who wanted to read it.**

**From: Kim Jongin  
The movie was good**

**Should I ask the teacher if we can switch?**

**From: Kim Jongin  
No I still want to read it.**

**Okay then. If you have any questions about it, you can ask me in class.**

 

On Friday Baekhyun was in the middle of roasting their choir teacher when Jongin walked up behind him, blue button down clinging to his slim figure. Kyungsoo saw him coming over Baekhyun’s shoulder and decided to say nothing.

“The man looks like he should be named Steve. Have you noticed he gets a weird twitch when he’s upset? Whenever the altos won’t shut up or the tenor 2s are out of tune, so basically always, he gets this weirdly distant, twitchy half smile. I can almost hear the Linkin Park blaring in his head—can I help you?” 

Kyungsoo snickered when Baekhyun nearly jumped out of his skin when Jongin appeared by his shoulder. 

“What’s Linkin Park?” 

Baekhyun’s mouth dropped open. “They’re like this really bad band. Did you miss middle school or something? What did you listen to during your awkward phase?” 

Jongin looked mystified. “Awkward…phase?” 

“Holy fuck you’re kidding me.” Baekhyun’s eyes widened and he covered his mouth with both hands. “Kyungsoo I think I just found someone who never had an awkward phase.” He reached out and poked Jongin in the face. “Are you even a person? OUCH!” 

Kyungsoo pulled Baekhyun away from Jongin by his ear. “Leave the kid alone, Baek. Believe it or not, not everyone went through a bad emo phase in middle school. Just because you listened to Black Veil Brides and died your tips red and wore way too much eye makeup and black lipstick doesn’t mean you have to project your mistakes onto everyone else.” 

“Right, there were also the kids who bullied me and put mulch in my backpack. I guess Jongin was one of those—Ack stop!” 

“I was the one who put mulch in your backpack, Baekhyun. It was me. Sorry about him, Jongin. He’s going through some bullshit right now so he’s a little prickly.” 

Jongin leaned against the lockers like a model and grinned. “Its fine. I didn’t think he was being mean. Why did you put mulch in his backpack?” 

“To make him cry.” 

“Fuck you, Kyungsoo. I didn’t cry. Let go of my ear.” 

Kyungsoo released him and did a quick check to make sure he hadn’t done any real damage. Baekhyun’s ear was a little red. He would be fine. 

Jongin looked back and forth between them, grin still firmly in place. “So Kyungsoo, I read the first couple pages but they were really boring. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to read all four chapters by Monday.” 

Baekhyun scoffed and Jongin frowned. Kyungsoo kicked Baekhyun lightly in the shin. Baekhyun pretended to die. 

“Text me any questions you have, seriously I’ll explain whatever you want. You do have to read it though.” 

“What if we read it together so we could talk about it as we went?” 

Wow, that sounded like a lot of one on one time with Kim Jongin. Kyungsoo felt a little ashamed that he kind of liked how that sounded. 

“We could do that. Um. Do you want to meet in the library after school or something?” 

“We could hang out tomorrow. You could come to my house.” 

For some reason that sounded a little terrifying. Like Kris Wu would be hiding in the closet or something. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t exactly get there. 

“I can’t drive yet, so…” 

“Could I come to yours?” 

“Yeah you could do that.” Oh god his room was a mess. 

“Text me your address and I’ll come over tomorrow with lunch.” 

“O-okay. Sounds good I’ll see you then.” 

“It’s a date.” Jongin threw him a wink and then carelessly flipped his hair back into place as he walked away. 

“Use protection.” 

“Shut up, Baek. Not funny.” 

“No it is funny, because Kim Jongin would never fuck you. All his friends would give him so much flack if he did. Look at him. He’s flawless. Fucker never even went through an awkward phase.” 

Jongin turned the corner at the end of the hallway and disappeared from view, and Kyungsoo leaned back against the lockers with a sigh.

“I know. I can’t help but feel a little star struck, ya know? Like even if I don’t buy into the hype, he’s still really hot and charismatic and he’s actually really sweet too. He’s kind of a school celebrity, so part of it is just that for the first time ever people are going to be jealous of me, just because I’m spending time with him. I can’t help but feel a little smug about that. But I know he’s way out of my league, so I’m just trying to ignore the fact that he’s. Ya know. Perfect.” 

They stood in silence for a minute and pondered, before Baekhyun spoke in an unusually quiet voice. “Is Chanyeol out of my league?” 

“No. Definitely not. You’re out of his league, even if he doesn’t realize it.” 

Baekhyun smiled bashfully and tucked his hair behind his ear. “Daw, Soo, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

“I just feel guilty about the mulch. Now shut up and go to class.” 

 

When Jongin showed up the next day wearing ripped jeans and a loose tank top with very wide sleeves and carrying Chipotle, his hair was blonde. Kyungsoo blinked up at it in confusion. 

“Whoa.” 

“You’re the first person who gets to see it! Do you like it?” He turned his head to the side and fluffed the golden locks into place, and Kyungsoo stared at his alarmingly perfect jawline. 

“Yeah, it looks great.” Though Kyungsoo had really liked the brown, there was something edgy and beautiful about the blond too. “Come on in. I’ve never actually eaten Chipotle, so this should be fun.” 

Chipotle didn’t quite live up to the hype, but Kyungsoo hadn’t really expected it to. Jongin tittered about who all the cheerleaders hooked up with at what parties, and Kyungsoo felt very out of his element. 

“So I’m kind of the Cheerleading team’s mediator right now because they’re all mad at each other. It’s really bad, actually. I need to hang out with more guys. Guys aren't allowed to get worked up about this kind of stuff. The cheerleaders are really upset about the new uniform design, because they all submitted their own designs and the girls whose designs didn’t get picked are really mad. They all think they’re future fashion designers but they’re not. And then about four different girls are trying to date Junmyeon, because he’s really rich and he’s the valedictorian, so basically prime real estate. And Sana is really mad because Nayeon hooked up with Chanyeol, and Sana and Chanyeol had a bit of a thing a couple months ago. Sana got way too invested. But if you ask me, I’m pretty sure Chanyeol has someone that he cares about, but he won’t tell us who.”

“Really?” Kyungsoo had been about to hate Chanyeol, but that last bit was interesting.

“Yeah. Because when he gets drunk, or even a couple times when he’s sober, he’s hinted that he has really strong feelings for someone, but he doesn’t pay that much attention to anyone he hooks up with.” 

“I didn’t realize you knew Chanyeol so well.” 

“Oh, I know everybody. It’s exhausting. I feel like all my friends are super high maintenance.” He sucked his fork into his mouth and licked it clean, pink tongue peeking out from between full lips, and Kyungsoo stared resolutely down into his own burrito bowl. 

“I’m glad none of my friends are high maintenance. I can’t do drama.” 

“You never have any drama?” 

“Nope. I avoid it like the plague.” 

“Maybe I should just spend all my time with you then.” Jongin pushed his empty bowl away and settled his chin on top of his arms on the table so he could look flirtatiously up at Kyungsoo through his eyelashes. Kyungsoo swallowed down his bite of burrito and hoped his smile didn’t look too nervous. 

“Um. I mean you’d have to get used to Baekhyun.” 

“Baekhyun seems funny.” 

“He’s kind of obnoxious though.” 

“I can handle it. I can handle a lot.” 

There was no way he didn’t do that on purpose. If it was anyone else, Kyungsoo would have made a dirty joke, but he had a feeling Jongin meant it to sound just as dirty as it did. He took another nervous bite of burrito bowl and pretended not to notice. 

When the last of the burrito dishes were disposed of, Kyungsoo led Jongin to his room and pulled the book off his bookshelf. Jongin flopped down on Kyungsoo’s bed and motioned for the other boy to join. 

“Come read to me, Soo.” 

Kyungsoo bit his lip and considered whether or not to ask him not to call him that. But he didn’t want to make Jongin think he wanted professional distance or something. Even though that might be a good thing. But Jongin’s face was too beautiful to correct, and the sight of his long, graceful body laid out on top of Kyungsoo’s bed made any reproach die in his throat. 

“Um. Okay.” He leaned back on the pile of pillows by the headboard and opened to the first chapter. “Do you want to start from the start, or from where you stopped?” 

“From the start, so I can ask questions.” He crawled up the bed and tucked himself under Kyungsoo’s arm, head on his chest, body pressed up against his side. Kyungsoo didn’t know what to do. He wrapped an arm awkwardly around Jongin’s shoulders and struggled to open the book to the right page with the other hand. Jongin reached out and helped, and then dropped the hand to rest across Kyungsoo’s stomach. 

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’”

“So like, don’t judge anyone because they don’t have it as good as you? Why would that make a difference? I feel like even if someone is less well off its still shitty if they’re, like, killing and stealing and stuff.” 

Four chapters was going to take a really long time. “I think what Nick’s dad meant was if someone isn’t acting up to your moral standards, or doing something that you wouldn’t do, just consider that maybe their outlook on the world has been shaped by harder circumstances, or that their parents didn’t raise them well or didn’t hold them to the same expectations. Maybe they’re doing their best with what they got.” 

“Oh. So is that significant to the story?” 

“Well, the author made it the first line, so it’s probably important. It’s probably supposed to give us some sort of idea as to why Nick reacts the way he does to everything in the book, or it’s something we should keep in mind while we read. Maybe he’s suggesting that we don’t criticize the characters too harshly without considering that maybe there’s a reason for the way they act that was out of their control.” 

“Wow, you’re really smart, Soo.” 

“I don’t wear the glasses for nothing.” 

Jongin giggled and snuggled closer. Kyungsoo moved on to the next paragraph. 

At first, every few sentences, Jongin stopped Kyungsoo with a question, or just for a discussion. He wasn’t nearly as dumb as he let on. A lot of the time his observations we well considered and even insightful. His questions slowly spaced out, leaving Kyungsoo to read longer. 

Jongin was a wiggly cuddler. He tangled their legs together and shifted around, hand occasionally sweeping over Kyungsoo’s chest or wandering down to lightly grip his waist. Kyungsoo, on the other hand, was scared to move. He didn’t want to do something weird, or make the other boy uncomfortable, or seem too into it. He didn’t really cuddle much with Baekhyun.

“Before we read any farther, I have to mention that my arm is asleep.” 

“I’m surprised it took you so long to mention it. I thought it would be asleep ages ago.” 

“It’s been asleep for ages.” 

“Oh, sorry.” Jongin giggled and then proceeded to slide himself over Kyungsoo’s body to his other side, leaving no space between them at all. Kyungsoo felt Jongin’s forehead brush over his chin, soft blond hair tickling his face, felt their chests touch, felt Jongin’s hips settle on top of his for just a brief second, and it was probably the most intimate moment Kyungsoo had ever had with anyone in his entire life, which was really sad, and then he settled down on Kyungsoo’s other side in the exact same position, except that there was a leg thrown over Kyungsoo’s legs, Jongin’s crotch pressed up against his thigh. 

Kyungsoo stared blankly ahead until Jongin got settled, trying his best to ignore the alarmed wtf feelings. 

“You good? Had fun?” 

Jongin giggled. “Yup, sorry. I did have a little fun.” 

“Yeah I can tell.” If he wanted to, he could just kick his leg a little to the side and it would press harder up against Jongin’s dick. It was really tempting. He glanced down and found that all of Jongin’s shifting had tugged the open sleeve of his tank top down over his chest, leaving a lot of skin exposed, including a dark nipple. Kyungsoo would have bet money he did it on purpose. It was too awkward to mention.

“You all good now?” 

“Yup I’m comfy.”

Kyungsoo went back to the book. Jongin stopped wiggling and just listened. His questions became fewer and farther between. He seemed to have forgotten to analyze and instead just enjoyed the story. By chapter two, Jongin was asleep. 

“Jongin?”

Jongin gave a quite snore. Kyungsoo sighed heavily and tipped his head back onto the pillows. There was an uncomfortable tingling in his arm that told him it would be completely asleep soon. 

This was the closest Kyungsoo had ever come to physical intimacy with anyone. Having the beautiful boy draped over him was nothing short of surreal. He picked his phone up off the bed and snapped a picture for Baekhyun, making sure to look as alarmed as possible. In the picture everything from Kyungsoo’s knees up was visible, which included Jongin’s lean thigh resting across Kyungsoo’s legs, his lovely S curve that stood out as he pressed up to Kyungsoo’s side, his toned arm resting on Kyungsoo’s chest, hand curling over his ribs, Kyungsoo’s arm still wrapped around Jongin’s shoulders, and Jongin’s head resting on his chest. His face was calm with sleep, ethereally beautiful under his newly blond hair. Kyungsoo actually considered how creepy it would be if he just took a picture of Jongin’s sleeping face. He decided it was too creepy. 

Jongin snored peacefully and showed no signs of waking up again. Nothing for it but to also nap. He tipped his head back onto the pillow pile and breathed a deep sigh. He was pretty tired. It was only too easy to drift off and let Jongin’s warmth and the titillating press of his body lull him to sleep. 

 

Kyungsoo woke up when his mom opened his bedroom door with an “Kyungsoo? Oh my.” He groaned and tried to turn over, only to realize that one of his sides was firmly pinned down. He was too warm. His shirt felt damp enough to be uncomfortably clingy. One of his arms was completely asleep. 

On top of him, Jongin made a sleepy noise that Kyungsoo could only describe as a moan. 

“Um. Boys?” 

Kyungsoo cracked his eyes open while Jongin shifted and nuzzled further into him like a cat. The heat must not bother him. Jongin’s open lips smeared across his shoulder and his hand slid up Kyungsoo’s side, and his hips pressed harder into Kyungsoo’s leg. Kyungsoo hoped he was imagining the fact that the slight bulge in his pants felt bigger. 

“Hi mom. Jongin, wake up.” 

“Hmmmm…” 

“Mom, th-this is Jongin, he’s my American Literature project partner. We fell asleep while reading Gatsby.” 

His mother was silent for a moment. “Ah. Well. I’m home, dinner will be ready in an hour. I’ll leave you two to it. We should talk later.” The door clicked shut again. Jongin rolled over on top of Kyungsoo before finally blinking his hooded eyes open and pushing himself up, glancing over his shoulder at the door. When he turned back around, his face was inches away from Kyungsoo’s. It didn’t seem to phase him. 

“Was that your mom?” 

“Yeah, that was her.”

“Oh. Haha.” He collapsed with his face pressed into Kyungsoo’s shoulder, and he was definitely half-hard. Kyungsoo’s breath hitched. 

“Jongin.” 

The other boy slowly sat up by pushing off Kyungsoo’s chest, still straddling Kyungsoo’s legs. Kyungsoo glanced quickly at the obvious bulge in his pants. “Mmm, sorry. Usually when I wake up with people, the circumstances are a little different. How’s your arm?” 

“I can’t feel it at all.” 

Jongin lifted Kyungsoo’s numb arm and began massaging it gently to try to get blood flowing. “Should we keep reading? I’ll get going before you have dinner, but she said an hour, right?” 

“Yeah, we could keep reading.” 

“Good. I love your voice. I could listen to you talk all day.” He flopped gracefully back down on Kyungsoo’s not-numb side in the exact same position as before. His eyes slipped closed again.

“I’m not going to read if you’re just going to fall asleep.” 

Jongin pouted up at him. “But your voice is so soothing. It makes me sleepy.” He curled in on himself like a cat and stretched, grinding his half hard bulge into Kyungsoo’s thigh. He wiggled around some more, somehow managing to rut against him without being obvious enough to point out, and when Kyungsoo looked down at him, he was met with a hooded eyes and a self-satisfied smirk. Kyungsoo tried to remember what a normal facial expression looked like. 

“Let’s just read over what you slept through. Try to stay awake so we don’t have to do it again.” 

“What will you give me if I stay awake?” 

“Um… I have leftover chocolate cake in the fridge.” 

“I’m cutting down on sugar and carbs.” 

“You’ll get a better grade on the assignment.” 

“Will you bring me coffee on Monday morning?” 

Kyungsoo could probably get Baekhyun to stop at Starbucks pretty easily. “Yeah, sure.” 

“Okay, I’ll stay awake. Thanks, Soo.” He leaned forward and gave Kyungsoo a peck on the jaw, and then settled back down and waited expectantly for Kyungsoo to continue, who felt a flustered blush rise in his cheeks. 

Jongin was back to asking a thousand questions. “Why does he talk about the giant eyes? Are ashes just the trees? Why does it sound like everything is burnt? Does Nick tell Daisy about Tom’s mistress? Wait, so they just bought a dog? Don’t you have to plan for that a little bit? Will it have food? How are they going to walk it if neither of them stay in the apartment all the time?” 

Kyungsoo patiently answered whatever he could. Jongin’s concern for Daisy and the poor dog was endearing. He found himself reaching up to pet Jongin’s hair when the boy looked worried about the characters behaving poorly. The blond strands felt so soft between his fingers. 

They didn’t finish the chapter, but when it was time to go Jongin gave him one last little snuggle and a kiss on the cheek before sliding off the bed. 

“I’ll see you Monday, Soo. Don’t forget my coffee.” 

“Just plain black coffee?” 

“Nah, make it iced with milk.” 

Kyungsoo was relieved that he didn’t want a crème brule latte with a shot of vanilla and caramel with extra whipped cream or something ridiculous like that. He felt kind of guilty for expecting it. 

“I don’t think I can remember that, Jongin, please make it simpler.” 

Jongin laughed, which was kind of breathtaking, and gave Kyungsoo a cheery smile. His eyes looked really cute when he laughed. Kyungsoo found himself grinning back. 

He saw Jongin to the door and then wandered to the kitchen where his mom was cutting up vegetables. “Come here and chop peppers, please.” 

“Yes, mom.” 

He worked in silence for a couple minutes and waited. 

“So?” 

“So what?” He looked up innocently and feigned cluelessness. She snorted. 

“Come on, Soo. You’re not that cuddly.” 

“I’m not, but he is. I dunno, I wasn’t really sure what to do with my hands.” 

“He’s cute.” 

Kyungsoo smiled to himself as he remembered how the boy had snuggled up to his side and got upset over disrespect to puppies in fiction. “Yeah, he is. My entire school is head over heels in love with him. Even the basketball players. Especially the basketball players.” 

“You included?” She stopped chopping to watch him closely. 

“I’m being converted, I think. He’s very sweet.” 

She didn’t look satisfied for some reason. He continued to feign innocence. 

“What?”

“What do you mean what? I’m sure you’re smart enough to know what I want to know.” 

Kyungsoo put down his knife and clutched a hand over his heart dramatically. “But mom, I’m young and confused. Why do you want to force me to define myself? I’m not ready for these questions.” 

She put her head down on the counter with equal drama. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. I won’t pry.” 

“I’m gay.” 

“There it is.” 

“He’s not my boyfriend.” 

“Yet?” 

“Never. He’s way out of my league, and he’s too popular. I don’t think exclusive relationships are really his thing, especially not with guys like me.” 

“Ah.” She sounded doubtful, but continued to chop her carrots without further inquiry. Kyungsoo smiled. “Please be safe and smart and use protection.” 

Kyungsoo slammed down his knife and walked back to his bedroom while she cackled behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

On Monday Kyungsoo walked nervously down the hallway carrying a grande iced coffee with milk. On the way into the building he had realized that it was possible that he might get to class before Jongin did, and that maybe Kris would be there, which was such a terrifying possibility that he even contemplated throwing the coffee away. But a promise was a promise. He didn’t want to see Jongin pout or sulk because of him. 

Luckily, Jongin was already in class. Kris was too, but that was okay because Jongin looked damn good in a nice black t-shirt and dark wash jeans, contrasting beautifully with his new blond hair, and when Kyungsoo came in he looked up expectantly and then smiled broadly. Kyungsoo fought a grin of his own and failed. 

“Here’s your damn coffee. Thank you for not falling asleep while I was reading. Baekhyun gave me all kinds of shit for making him pull into Starbucks.” 

Jongin laughed and reached out to capture his arm. He didn’t do anything with it. Just held onto it while he smiled up into Kyungsoo’s face. 

“Thank you so much! I hope Baekhyun wasn’t too mean.” 

“He was very judgmental and then he ordered a caramel Frappuccino with chocolate chips and extra whipped cream.” 

Jongin laughed loudly. He had a really adorable dorky laugh that twisted his eyes into little slanted crescents. Kyungsoo had the sudden odd urge to hug him, which was not really an urge he had about people. But he kind of missed the feeling of Jongin’s lean, solid body against his. 

“Aww, you bought him coffee? That’s adorable.” 

Kyungsoo looked to the side and was met with Kris’s malicious grin. He did his best to channel us much unimpressed dislike as he could into a glare. Kris went from looking smug to a little nervous as his gaze shifted between Kyungsoo and Jongin. Kyugnsoo realized Jongin was giving Kris an almost identical stare down. He took at sip of Jongin’s coffee and raised his eyebrows at Kris, who opened his mouth and then nothing came out. 

Kyungsoo remembered he didn’t like coffee. “Ugh. I hate coffee.” He set it back on the desk with a grimace and Jongin burst into giggles. 

“Why did you drink it if you don’t like it?” 

“I dunno. Dramatic effect? I’m just going to go sit down.” 

“Okay, see you later, Soo.” He was still giggling a little as Kyungsoo walked to his seat. Kris looked very annoyed. 

That wasn’t the last of the coffee he had. Jongin sat down in front of him at the end of class and innocently offered the half empty cup to him. 

“No thanks, Jongin.” 

“Oh come on, just one sip?” 

“Jongin I hate coffee.” 

Jongin fluttered his eyelashes. Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes. Jongin pouted. Kyungsoo crossed his arms and sat way back in his seat. Jongin nudged the coffee forward. Kyungsoo shook his head. Jongin sank down onto his arms and looked up at Kyungsoo through his eyelashes, eyes pleading. Kyungsoo stared him down. Jongin lowered his eyes and heaved a sigh. He looked so sad. Kyungsoo prayed for strength. 

“Please, Soo?’ 

“Why? I already told you I hate coffee.” 

Jongin muttered something into his arms, and Kyungsoo made out the word ‘funny,’ but that was all. 

“So Gatsby. I assume you haven’t read anymore, so we should start thinking about how we’re going to pr—Jongin, why.” 

Jongin stopped groaning dramatically long enough to pout at him some more. He was so cute Kyungsoo couldn’t stand it. “Oh for fucks sake, it really doesn’t matter that much.” He grabbed the coffee and gave it a long sip. It was disgusting. Kyungsoo winced and choked it down while Jongin resurfaced with a big grin. 

“That wasn’t so bad was it?” 

“Blegh. Why did you make me do that?” 

“I wanted to see what I would have to do to make you drink it.” 

“You wanted to see if I would suck up?” 

Jongin frowned. “Well it sounds really bad when you say it like that. Its just that most people give in at the pout.”

Kyungsoo barked out a laugh. “If I felt like I had to do whatever unpleasant thing you wanted me to do if I wanted to be friends with you, you wouldn’t really be worth being friends with.” 

Jongin blinked at him with wide eyes and then smiled. “So… your impressive resistance to my pout means…” 

“I don’t, know, I guess it means I won’t sacrifice my dignity to be liked?”

“But do you think I’m worth being friends with?” 

He was looking at Kyungsoo through his lashes again. “Well, I mean you did throw a tantrum and force me to drink coffee. I’ll never get the taste out of my mouth. Ugh.” He threw his head back dramatically. “And the other day you slept on me and my arm lost feeling and I got the worst pins and needles.” 

“But Soo,” Jongin whined, “You bought me a drink and we slept together. You were the first person to see my blond hair. Do I mean nothing to you?” 

Kyungsoo laughed and ruffed Jongin’s soft blond hair, and then Jongin swept a hand through it. It fell perfectly back into place. “Yes, I think you’re worth being friends with, whatever that means.” 

“Even if I whine and make you do things you don't like?” 

“I mean you can try. I’m just saying if you decide you don’t like me because it doesn’t work, I’m not going to cry about it.” 

“I like that it doesn’t work.” He leaned forward like he was about to tell a secret. “It works really well on Kris. He’ll do anything when I pout. He’s really dumb.” 

That made Kyungsoo a lot happier than it probably should. 

 

“Um. Hello Jongdae.”

Jongdae looked up from Baekhyun’s floor with a cat-like grin and then returned to his homework. Kyungsoo gave Baekhyun a very confused look.

“What? You said we needed more friends.” 

“Is that why I’m here?” Jongdae sat up with his funny eyebrows tilted in, which made him look about ten times more worried. “To fill your friend quota?” 

“Kyungsoo opened up a spot in this friend group and you were selected to fill it. You should be honored!” 

Jongdae shrugged and went back to his homework. “Fair enough. I need to fill my friend quota too.” 

“Hey look, all three of us are tenors. We could be The Three Tenors. I call Pavarotti.” Baekhyun had probably been planning that line since he asked Jongdae to come hang out. 

“I call Placido Domingo. I’ve always liked his name,” Jongdae said without batting an eyelash. 

Dammit, Kyungsoo didn’t know the name of the other one. “I’m not doing this until all three of us have Met Opera careers.” 

Baekhyun smirked. “He doesn’t remember the name of the third tenor.” 

“What’s his name, Baekhyun?” 

“Um.” 

“Shut the fuck up. Also, if you only liked me for my NPR voice, why did you recruit another tenor?” 

“Jongdae is a fantastic singer but his talking voice is perfectly normal. Unlike you, he doesn’t sound like a sex line operator.”

“You’re just jealous. Look at this.” 

He pulled up his photos on his phone as he stomped over to the bed and flopped down next to Baekhyun. The phone landed on Baekhyun’s chest. Baekhyun picked it up. 

“The screen is black. You must have closed it while you were being all dramatic.” 

“Fucking—“ Kyungsoo sat back up and unlocked his phone, and then flopped back down again. 

“Oh my.” Baekhyun looked at the picture Kyungsoo had taken while Jongin was asleep on him and his eyes got real wide. 

“It was so weird, Baekhyun. I didn’t know what to do.” 

“Is he asleep?” 

“Yup. I fell asleep too and then my mom walked in and she thought we were dating for about an hour. He was half hard when he woke up but he didn’t get off me.” 

“Wait, what?” Jongdae hauled himself up off the floor and came over to look. Baekhyun showed him the picture right away as if Jongdae hadn’t just shown up that day and Kyungsoo had actually spoken more than ten words to him outside of choir talk in his life. “Is that… Kim Jongin? You know him?” 

“He’s my lit class partner. He’s flirty.” 

“He’s, like, a slut, right?” 

“No, he’s really sweet,” Kyungsoo said, just as Baekhyun said “Yup,” then Kyungsoo glared at him while Baekhyun looked over with raised eyebrows. 

“I think Kyungsoo is falling into the Kim Jongin trap. Don’t let him seduce you. You’re a choir nerd, he’ll never like you back.” 

Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes and Jongdae looked worried again. “I don’t like him like that. He’s the one flirting, but I’m pretty sure he flirts with everyone. I just wouldn’t mind being friends with him because he’s actually very sweet. And Kris does whatever he says, and Jongin thinks it’s just as hilarious as I do.” 

“I mean that is pretty funny. But if he’s also fucking Kris, that kind of negates it. He’s dumb and shallow and those are two things I don’t like in people, no offence, Jongdae.” 

Jongdae spluttered and hit him with a pillow. 

“He’s not though.” 

“Kyungsoo has a crush.” 

“Do not. Speaking of crushes, maybe you’re just being bitter because I’m getting cuddles from tall hot guys and you’re not. Hmm? Maybe you’re jealous that Jongin gets to cuddle and listen to my sex line operator voice read The Great Gatsby and you don’t.” 

“You’re reading The Great Gatsby?” Jongdae snickered. 

Kyungsoo threw an arm over Baekhyun to keep him stationary, and then shoved his lips right next to his ear and began in his most sensual voice, “Once upon a time there was a rich enigmatic dumb basketball player with big ears that lived at West Egg who was in love with a scrawny noisy dumb tenor with girly hands who lived at East Egg.” 

Baekhyun thrashed and yelled in protest, knocking Kyungsoo’s glasses askew, and Jongdae jumped in to help Kyungsoo hold him down. “One day the dumb tenor came to one of the dumb basketball player’s stupidly extravagant parties, and the dumb basketball player lured the dumb tenor up to his room by saying ‘do you want to play Far Cry?’” 

Baekhyun burst into nervous laughter to compliment the frantic squeaking. “Do Kyungsoo how dare you use that voice against me! You know it’s my weakness!” 

“—and the dumb basketball player said ‘no homo,’ and then he stuck his giant dick up the dumb tenor’s ass and fucked him hard until he screamed and came all over the dumb basketball players many fancy colorful shirts that they had thrown around the room for no good reason just minutes before.” 

“I feel like there’s a lot of references here I’m not getting,” Jongdae said, as Baekhyun wailed and gasped for breath. “I don’t know if they’re from the book or inside jokes or real life…” 

Kyungsoo was out of plot, so he started graphically moaning into Baekhyun’s ear instead, who screamed like Kyungsoo was stabbing him. Jongdae dropped down to Baekhyun’s other side and began crooning jazz music into his other ear. Eventually Kyungsoo had to stop because he was laughing too hard. Jongdae was officially a good addition to the group. 

 

Jongdae was just as bad a food thief as Baekhyun. Kyungsoo sighed as he watched another four fries disappear off his plate in quick succession. He didn’t need the extra grease and carbs anyway. 

“Look over there at the cool kids table.” Baekhyun nodded over at the side of the lunchroom where people like Kris and Jongin and Chanyeol and the cheerleaders usually sat. They were all crowded around the same table, looking very animated. Kyungsoo could make out Jongin’s blond hair among the crowd, and when he got a glimpse of the boy’s face, he could see his eyes were crinkled with excitement. 

“I wonder what they’re up to.” 

“Can’t be anything good.” 

Jongdae hummed in agreement and stole another fry from Kyungsoo. 

“Next time my mom asks why I’m so skinny, I’m going to say that the bullies always steal my lunch.” 

“Since when were you skinny?” Said Baekhyun, who loved being an asshole. 

“Right, sorry. You’re the skinny one. I’m the one with actual muscle on my body.” 

“You have thin shoulders.” 

“You have an annoying voice.” 

“Remind me why I’m sitting with you guys again?” 

Kyungsoo sighed. “Sorry, Jongdae. I promise we like each other. We’re just very antagonistic friends.” He threw a couple fries onto Baekhyun’s plate as a peace offering, and Baekhyun smiled just a little bit before he ate them. Angry gods appeased, Kyungsoo looked back over at the table. He couldn’t see Jongin anymore. 

“Looking for me?” 

“HOLy fuck.” Kyungsoo whirled around to find Jongin sitting in the previously empty seat next to him with a broad grin on his perfect face. He shifted closer and rested one arm across the back of Kyungsoo’s chair and the other on the table. Kyungsoo was a little worried he was going to crawl up in his lap again. 

“Hello, Baekhyun!” He greeted warmly, and Baekhyun stopped gaping to wave. “Soo, how would you like to be on our grade’s Homecoming Float this year?” 

Ah. Easy question. “No.” The Float was always organized by each grade’s cheerleaders. Only the most socially elite got to be on The Float. 

Jongin immediately pouted. “Listen to my pitch first!” 

“You asked me a yes or no question! I gave you my yes or no answer!” 

“Are you going to listen to my pitch or not?” 

“I’ll listen, but don’t get your hopes up.” 

“Our class’s theme is going to be Greek mythology, right? Specifically, the gods of Olympus, because like our athletes are gods or whatever. You get the picture. I claimed Apollo. It’s going to be really fun! We’ll get to wear togas and drink fake wine and ride around on The Float.” 

“And do they want me to be a goat person or a tree or something?” 

“Nope. You could be Dionysus!” 

God of wine, festivals, and madness, aka god of getting wasted and going to wild parties and doing stupid shit. That just sounded like straight up humiliation. Jongin looked way too excited. “Why?”

“You kind of look the part somehow.” 

Kyungsoo had been afraid of that. “I look like a fat drunk asshole?” 

Jongdae and Baekhyun bust out laughing, and Jongin sighed like he knew he was going to have to explain everything. “We want everyone to be really attractive, because we’re gods and all, but Dionysus is probably a less conventional attractive.”

Less conventional was one way to put it. Baekhyun giggled. “I think it’s the lips.” Jongin’s eyes immediately dropped down to Kyungsoo’s lips. “And the squishy cheeks and big eyes. And you’re short. I feel like Dionysus looks dumpier than the rest of the gods.” 

Jongin’s eyes were still on his lips. Kyungsoo looked away to see Jongdae staring at Jongin with very wide eyes, like he was either star struck or very alarmed. 

“Jongin, I don’t really think that’s my scene.” 

Jongin put on a sulky face. “Oh fuck that. I told them earlier that I wanted The Float to represent more of the class, and some of them agreed with me, so I’m moving ahead with that plan. Everyone always just ends up doing what I say anyway. Please, Kyungsoo. I know you said you won’t do things because I pout, but I really really want you to do this with me.” 

Kyungsoo thought hard about it. If he agreed, the cheerleaders would dress up everyone else to look like literal gods, and he would probably end up being made to look like a fat drunk asshole. It would be nothing but uncomfortable and humiliating. He was sure there was someone in the class who was less awkward and more willing to look like an idiot. He wanted to help Jongin out, but he really, really didn’t want to be on The Homecoming Float. 

And then Chanyeol appeared. 

“Hi guys! He flashed his giant gummy grin and waved. When did you start hanging with these losers, Jongdae?” 

“Yesterday.” Jongdae was looking between Baekhyun and Chanyeol with a sly smile of realization growing on his face. He was probably remembering part of Kyungsoo’s wild tale of dumb basketball players with big ears and noisy tenors with girly hands. Chanyeol didn’t notice Jongdae’s epiphany. 

“Hey Baekhyun, our Float theme is Greek gods. I’m Poseidon. We need a Hermes and I immediately thought of you. You’ll get to be on The Float, dress up for the game, and then all The Float participants have an after-party at Jihyo’s house. There’s going to be tons of booze.” 

Baekhyun blinked up at Chanyeol and then looked over at Kyungsoo with a very clear plea in his eyes. “Yeah, absolutely, Kyungsoo is doing it too.” 

He could say no to Jongin, but Kyungsoo wasn’t about to leave Baekhyun in his time of need. “Yup. I’m, uh. Me too.” 

“Awesome! I’ll go tell them we’ve got two more gods covered.” 

“Are you sure Baekhyun wouldn’t make a better cupid?” Jongdae asked, “I think he’d look great wearing just his underwear and waving around a tiny gold bow.” Baekhyun casually dumped the last of his milk over Jongdae’s fries. Chanyeol guffawed and apologized to Jongdae for laughing and then left. 

“Thanks, Soo. You’re a really good friend,” Jongin said, but Kyungsoo saw a certain sparkle in his eye that made Kyungsoo think he didn’t mean that Kyungsoo was being a really good friend to him specifically. Jongin’s gaze flickered over to Baekhyun, and then to Chanyeol’s retreating back. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.” 

“Yeah, see you.” 

Jongin got up and sauntered gracefully back to his own table, leaving Baekhyun and Kyungsoo looking nervous, and Jongdae looking very amused. 

 

Kris and his partner followed Jongin to the back of the room on Wednesday afternoon. Jongin didn’t seem too put off by it, just rolled his eyes when Kris sat on Jongin’s desk and leaned over Jongin protectively while he stared down Kyungsoo. It was sweet that he considered Kyungsoo a threat, but it was still unnerving. Kyungsoo did his best to ignore him. 

He and Jongin actually did work on their project for a bit. They compiled a bulleted list of important points in chapters one and two, and things they wanted to look out for in future chapters. Kyungsoo hardly had to prompt him at all. He was surprised how well Jongin remembered the chapters he may or may not have partially slept through. 

Then Kris started massaging Jongin’s shoulders, and any hope of focus went out the window. Jongin leaned back into Kris’s big hands as his eyes slipped closed. Kris looked like he would give really good massages. Kyungsoo wished he had someone to give him a massage. Maybe Jongdae would do it. 

He glanced up at Kris and found the basketball player smirking down at him like he had succeeded in making Kyungsoo jealous or something. He really was dumb. Kyungsoo laughed and smiled pleasantly back, which Kris seemed to find very confusing and a little off-putting. Poor guy. 

“So Kyungsoo, you’re going to be on The Homecoming Float?” 

Kyungsoo glanced to the side to see Kris’s project partner, a pretty, friendly looking girl with a ponytail. “Yeah, I got bullied into it.” 

Jongin resurfaced to join the conversation. “He’s going to be Dionysus.” 

She examined Kyungsoo closely. “Yeah, that fits, somehow. Who else is going to be a god? I know all the goddesses already.” 

“Well, Kris here will be Zeus,” of fucking course he will, “I’m Apollo, Sehun is Hades, Zitao is Ares, Junmyeon is Hephaestus, Chanyeol is Poseidon, and Baekhyun is Hermes.”

She nodded. “I don’t know Baekhyun, but those all seem like good choices. Except for Zitao and Junmyeon. Is Sehun gay, by the way? I was going to try to get with him but then I realized I didn’t know. I’m assuming you do. Weren’t you fucking him at the beginning of the year?” 

Jongin snorted. “You say that like I ever stopped fucking him.” Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows up at Kris, who was looking more and more sour. “He’s not straight, but I don’t think he’s gay either. Go for it.” 

“How many of The Float gods have you fucked?” 

“Just Sehun, Junmyeon, and Kris. Everyone but me and Sehun are straight, I’m pretty sure.” He gave Kyungsoo a mischievous smirk like he definitely wasn’t so sure about Hermes or Poseidon.

“So you haven’t fucked Chanyeol then?” Kyungsoo probably shouldn’t have asked, but he felt like he had to be sure. Jongin’s smirk grew as he shook his head. 

“Why do you care about Chanyeol?” Kris sneered. Yup, Kyungsoo should have kept his mouth shut. 

He shrugged. “He’s the only other person on the float I know besides Baekhyun. I was curious.” 

“I mean I don’t know why you’d be curious if you weren’t interested.” 

With all due respect to Baekhyun, the thought of being interested in Chanyeol was mildly repulsive. “Are you trying to get me to say I’m not straight? I wouldn’t be throwing stones, Kris.” 

The bell rang, thank god, as Kris took his hands gingerly off Jongin’s shoulders, and Jongin muffled laughter behind his hand. 

“You know I could kick your ass, right?” 

Jongin turned around in his seat to presumably give Kris a look of alarm. Kyungsoo just snorted again. “Yeah, Kris. Whatever helps you sleep at night.” If the dumb jock really thought he could convince the world he was straight by threatening everyone who called him gay, then he was in for a nasty surprise. 

Jongin slid forward in his seat between Kris’s legs. “I mean, if you really don’t want people to think you’re gay that badly, then maybe you shouldn’t sleep with men.” Kris’s partner watched very closely with a blush rising in her cheeks.

“You don’t count,” Kris said, as he bent down closer to Jongin’s face and placed a giant hand on the back of his neck. Somehow Jongin didn’t seem to mind that comment.

“And yet, I have a dick.” He leaned up the rest of the way and brushed Kris’s lips with his own, and Kris kissed back heavily. His eyes flickered up to Kyungsoo’s face like a challenge. It was really weird that Kris was looking at him while he kissed someone else. Kyungsoo made sure to let Kris know how weird it was by using his facial expressions. 

 

In Friday’s class Kris was even more overbearing. He sat on Jongin’s desk and snuggled him from behind as he whispered in his ear. Jongin giggled and played with Kris’s hair. Kyungsoo didn’t like it. He struck up a conversation with Kris’s abandoned partner instead, and they had a good talk about cooking. 

Kris barely let Jongin say goodbye to Kyungsoo before pulling him away with an arm around his shoulders, still being sickeningly cute. Kyungsoo and the girl, who’s name was Nayeon, exchanged coffee cake recipes and went on their way. 

Jongin reappeared at lunch when he slid into the seat next to Kyungsoo, lunch in hand, and startled the fuck out of Jongdae. 

“Can I sit with you guys? I’m running away from Kris.” 

Baekhyun turned around and gave the table across the lunchroom a glare, like he couldn’t understand why Chanyeol didn’t come sit with them. 

“Yeah, he was on you like an octopus in class today, what was up with that?” 

“I slept with him again. I probably shouldn’t have, because now he won’t fucking leave me alone. I don’t know why he thinks sleeping with me twice is any grounds for showing off. I’ve slept with Sehun and Luhan and Junmyeon loads more times. Hell, I’ve slept with Jihyo and Chaeyoung and like half the cheerleading squad more times think I’ve slept with him.” 

The wistful jealousy in Jongdae’s face was painfully noticeable. Baekhyun looked somewhere between shocked and impressed. “So why are you sleeping with Kris to begin with?” 

Jongin shrugged. "He’s hot. He’s good at flirting. And he’s good with his fingers. He’s got a really big dick. Oh god here he comes.” 

Kyungsoo was more than surprised that it was Baekhyun and Jongdae that spoke up when Kris pulled up a seat next to Jongin.

“Nope, nope, nope you’re not allowed to sit with us.”

“Away! Get away!” 

“No assholes allowed! This is an asshole free zone.” 

Kris looked too surprised to be pissed. “What?” 

“Remember that time you were a total dick to Luna? You’ve been blacklisted by the entire choir. We hate you, get lost. That’s what you get for bullying sweet sopranos. We won’t be seen with you.” 

“Then leave,” Kris barked defensively.

“We were here first!”

Kyungsoo winced and got elementary school flashbacks because that was the only time arguments like ‘we were here first’ had ever worked. Jongin snickered at Kyungsoo’s distress. 

Apparently it worked for Kris though. 

“Whatever, it’s not like I want to sit here anyway. I just want to get Jongin.” He turned to Jongin. “Come on, babe, lets go.” 

“I’m sorry, Krissy, but I’m going to sit with Kyungsoo today so we can plan for when we work on the project on Saturday. You’ll have to eat without me.” He looked appropriately apologetic. “Maybe I’ll be able to come back over to our table later.” 

“All the seats will be taken by then.” 

“I’ll just sit on your lap.” He winked. Kris looked slightly appeased, and stood to leave. 

He made it one step, and then stopped. “Wait, you said you were studying with Kyungsoo on Saturday? Jihyo’s birthday party is on Saturday. You can’t miss it.” 

Jongin pouted convincingly. “If Kyungsoo and I get enough done I’ll go, but I might not be able to. I’ll buy her something really nice if I can’t make it.” 

Kris looked like he would prefer if Jongin bought something really nice for him instead if he didn’t make it, or rather maybe did something really nice (on a bed), but he nodded anyway and loped back to his end of the lunchroom. The tenors sighed with relief. 

“If he’d been here any longer, we might have had to resort to drastic measures.” 

Jongdae nodded in agreement. “What if the sopranos had seen?” He looked anxiously over at a table of cute sopranos, and then jerked back to face forward, looking slightly pink. One of the sopranos must have seen. 

“So about Saturday, can I come over at the same time? I don’t think I can come any earlier because I sleep in on Saturdays and if I don’t I’ll just fall asleep on you again. I think we need to get more than two chapters read this time though, so I might have to stay over for longer, but instead of bringing lunch this time I’ll pay for takeout or pizza or something.” 

Jongin was probably right about needing to read more this time. “Don’t worry about dinner, I’ll just tell mom you’re staying longer and she’ll make enough for another person.” 

“Really? I don’t want to be a bother.” 

“He does it for me all the time,” Baekhyun chipped in. “Mrs. Do and Kyungsoo’s cooking is really amazing, I always jump on the opportunity to eat their food.” 

Jongin looked excited. “You cook?” 

“Yeah, I help my mom out a lot, so I’ve picked up a few things.” 

“Well if you’re going to cook for me I can’t just say no. I’ll bring over lunch again. Maybe Panera this time. Have you ever had Panera?” 

“Nope.” 

“Figures.” He stole a couple fries of Kyungsoo’s plate and chewed them judgmentally, before looking over and talking to Jongdae for the first time. “You’re Kim Jongdae, right?” 

Jongdae looked very shocked to be addressed. “That’s me.”

“Do you think Wheein is cute?” 

“Um. Y-yeah, she’s cute.” He glanced back over at the soprano table where Wheein was. “Why are you asking me this? You aren’t going to tell her are you?” 

“No of course not! What kind of disgusting awful person do you think I am?” 

“I don’t think that.” Jongdae said a little too fast. Jongin giggled. 

“You’re cute too. Just like Wheein.” 

Jongdae snuck looks at Wheein for the rest of lunch. Jongin looked very pleased with himself. He never did go sit on Kris’s lap. 

 

Panera managed to use excessive amounts of avocado more effectively than Chipotle did, and Kyungsoo deemed it better. Jongin was still on the fence, siting Kyungsoo’s limited sample size as his most convincing argument, but he’d already eaten his own sandwich by the time he got to Kyungsoo’s house, so Kyungsoo couldn’t add that one to his list of Panera trials. 

While Kyungsoo ate his own sandwich, propped up against the headboard of his bed, Jongin flopped with his back over Kyungsoo’s legs and started on the apple that had come with his meal. The way he was flopped with his shoulders resting on one of Kyungsoo’s legs meant that his head tipped back against the blankets, and his spine arched down to his hips on Kyungsoo’s other side. Jongin’s soft blond hair tickled the outside of Kyungsoo’s knee. His plush lips molded around the red skin of the apple, and juice dripped down the side of his face before he could stop it, even though he stuck his shiny pink tongue out to try and lick it up before it got too far. 

Kyungsoo flung the entire pile of napkins at his face. Jongin yelped in surprise and cackled, and then dutifully cleaned himself up, smiling mischievously up at Kyungsoo who did his best to look very unaffected. 

“So what’s up with Chanyeol and Baekhyun?” 

“I don’t know, Jongin, why don’t you tell me?” 

Jongin smacked him lightly on the leg. “Don’t play dumb with me, Soo.” 

“If there was anything up with Chanyeol and Baekhyun, it wouldn’t be my place to say. Maybe if you asked Baekhyun. Don’t ask Chanyeol, though.”

“He’d deny it, wouldn’t he?” 

“Yeah.” 

Jongin took another bite of his apple and frowned. “Is that why you and Baekhyun were looking at us that one time? The day we got put on the project together. You said it wasn’t for the reason’s I thought it was.” 

Kyungsoo struggled to remember back that far. He vaguely remembered Jongin cuddling up on Chanyeol’s lap in the lunch room, and Baekhyun being angry about it. 

“Yeah that was why. I’m really surprised you remember all that.” 

Jongin looked away, but Kyungsoo thought he saw just a little blush on his cheeks. “I have a good memory,” he muttered into his apple. 

“I know. You remembered a lot of the Gatsby chapters too, even though you slept through part of them.” 

“It’s how I pass all my classes and make so many friends. I can remember facts and names really well. People tend to like you if you remember their name.” 

Kyungsoo smiled, thought of something sweet to say, something about there being many reasons people liked Jongin. Didn’t say it. Kyungsoo didn’t look enough like Kris to start showering affection on Jongin. 

They sat in a silence that was probably only awkward for Kyungsoo, until Jongin made a face and rolled his shoulder against Kyungsoo’s knee. 

“Damn, my back hurts. I could really go for one of Kris’s massages right now. I swear they’re way better than the sex. Let’s be honest, I’ll probably fuck him again, and half the reason might be to get more massages. I’ll just also talk to him and tell him to be less overbearing. If I pout he’ll stop.” 

Kyungsoo ignored Jongin’s questionable sex life choices. “Why does your back hurt?” 

“I fucked this guy named Johnny last night.”

“The band kid?” 

“Yeah. I think he plays trumpet but I don’t know. He just seems like a trumpet player. Strong lips. Anyway, we went for a long time in a bunch of different positions, some of which,” he ground a knot into Kyungsoo’s kneecap, which was kind of weird, “were not kind to my back. Great at the time though. I was impressed.” 

“I’d offer to give you a massage but I really can’t. Whenever we do massage trains in choir, the people in front of me are always very disappointed.” 

“Well this is the perfect opportunity to practice. I’ll read while you give me a massage.” 

Kyungsoo really didn’t like the sound of that, but Jongin insisted, and Kyungsoo found himself sitting back on his heels behind Jongin with his hands tentatively placed on his shoulders. Jongin was more muscular than he was. 

“Did you start?” 

“Do you feel me moving my hands?” 

“No, but you did say you sucked at massages.” 

Kyungsoo frowned and began self-consciously rubbing his fingers over Jongin’s soft t-shirt. 

“You weren’t kidding. Push, Soo.”

He pushed. “No, not like that! Have you ever gotten a massage before?” 

“Yes?” 

“Well then you should know what to do. Like this. Push in with your fingertips.” He reached back and sank his fingers into Kyungsoo’s thighs. Kyungsoo winced and tried to imitate.

“That’s better, now move them around.” 

A good fifteen minutes, lots of barked instruction, and not a single word of _The Great Gatsby_ later, Kyungsoo felt like his fingers were going to fall off. 

“Jongin please don’t make me do this anymore. I have knots too and they’re getting worse.” 

“But Soo, you’re getting better! You even know what knots are now.” 

“I’m in pain. You’re not reading.” 

“Fine, fine. I’d rather listen to you read anyway. Switch places. But this isn’t over, Soo. I’ll make a master masseuse of you yet.” 

Kyungsoo finished up chapter two with Jongin digging his fingers into Kyungsoo’s back, which resulted in only minor lapses in concentration. Jongin still asked questions about the text, which was good because otherwise Kyungsoo really wouldn’t have known he was listening. 

He was just beginning chapter three when Jongin found the knots between his shoulder blades. 

“Oh!” He put the book down. “Right there.” 

“You have some really awful knots here, Soo. How did you get them?” 

“Holding a folder in choir. Ah! Oh my god.” 

Jongin dug his knuckles into the knots. It hurt like hell. 

“Lie on your stomach so I can get these easier.” He pushed Kyungsoo down onto his stomach and then kneeled over him and went to work on his back.

“Fuck, Jongin, gentle.” 

“Sorry. How else am I going to get the knots out?” 

“I dunno, just fuck don’t ow ow ow, chill dude holy fuck.” 

Jongin giggled and stopped abusing one of the worst knots with his thumb. Kyungsoo sighed with relief and opened the book back up to his long descriptions of Gatsby’s extravagant parties and wildly social lifestyle. 

“I bet the party tonight is going to be like that.” Jongin said when Kyungsoo paused to wince in pain. “Jihyo goes really hard, and it’s her eighteenth birthday. When she turned sixteen she dyed her pool pink and covered the house in roses. Everyone got drunk on champagne. Her boyfriend at the time told her that for her birthday he would do anything she wanted during sex for a week. He thought she was really vanilla and he wouldn’t have to do much. He ended up fucking her on the huge flamingo pool float that I got her in the middle of her pink pool.” 

“That sounds uncomfortable. Can you imagine the squeaking?” 

Jongin laughed. “He said it was awful. Then she wanted to have a threesome with me, but he was really protective, and only did it when I had my hands tied behind my back the whole time. It was really fun. I think they did some other shit too, but they didn’t tell me about it.” 

“What do you think she’s going to do for her eighteenth?” 

“I think ‘rave by the pool’ is the theme, and people are going to get drunk and swim, but I wouldn’t get in that water if you paid me.” 

Kyungsoo shuddered. “It’s really fine if you want to go, you know. I’m sure we can get more than enough reading done by then.” 

“I’ll go if you go with me.”

“No thanks.” 

“Soo!” He flopped down on Kyungsoo’s back. “It’ll be fun! You’ll get to meet my friends! I’ve met yours, and we can drink and dance!” 

“I don’t really do either of those things.” 

Jongin buried his face in Kyungsoo’s shoulder and whined, and Kyungsoo picked the book back up and kept reading. Jongin continued to sulk into Kyungsoo’s shoulder as he read, only surfacing to make comments like ‘so Nick got invited because he knows Daisy?’ and ‘smooth, Nick, smooth,’ when Nick was awkward. 

“Jongin, is it alright if I move? This is kind of uncomfortable.” 

Jongin rolled to the side and pulled Kyungsoo with him, and Kyungsoo found himself pressed up against Jongin’s front by an arm slung across his chest. Jongin’s breath puffed against the back of his neck, and his ass nestled neatly into Jongin’s hips. He felt his face heat up. Here he was again with no idea what he was doing. 

“Keep reading?” 

Uh… Kyungsoo found his place after a minute and kept reading. The heat in his cheeks showed no sign of going away. He lost his place several times before giving up and putting the book down. 

“Jongin…” 

Jongin giggled and squeezed tighter. “What’s wrong?” 

“I’m really not used to cuddling.”

“Hmm?” Kyungsoo could here the smile in his voice. “Does this bother you?” He pressed a slow kiss to the back of Kyungsoo’s neck with his pillow lips with just the slightest hint of wetness. Kyungsoo felt his breath catch in his throat, and Jongin’s soft mouth stretched into a grin against his skin. 

Kyungsoo squirmed. “Come on, Jongin. As if the cuddling wasn’t weird enough as it was.” His heart beat up in his throat as Jongin giggled and clutched him close. 

“I’m a cuddler, Soo. You’re just going to have to get used to it.” 

“Oh my god. Fine.” At wasn’t like he hated it exactly. 

“Would it be better if you were big spoon?” 

“No!” Letting Jongin cuddle him was hard enough. It would be even harder to be the one doing the cuddling. 

“But Soo, I don’t really like being big spoon. Please can I be the little spoon?” 

Kyungsoo was so, so close to telling Jongin he didn’t like being called Soo. “Then how will I read?” 

“I’ll read. Come on.” Jongin snatched the book out of Kyungsoo’s hands and clambered over him so he could lie down in front of him. Kyungsoo found his face pressed up against broad shoulders, and Jongin’s bottom backed up against his hips. “Now put your arm over me.” 

“This is weird.” 

“Just try it, you’ll like it. Cuddling is the best.”

Kyungsoo took off his glasses and put an arm cautiously over Jongin’s side and let his hand fall onto the bed, careful not to touch Jongin’s stomach. Jongin grabbed the awkward hand and set it firmly on his front, on the base of his rib cage. “The most important thing about cuddling is to not be scared of it. There’s not right or wrong way to do it. Just remember that cuddling is supposed to be nice and affectionate, and even if you don’t actually like me at all, you can fake it. Come on act like you like me.” 

Kyungsoo thought cuddling might actually be easier if he didn’t like Jongin, because then he wouldn’t care if Jongin though he was awkward, or a bad cuddler, or that Kyungsoo wanted to fuck him, which really, he didn’t. The desire for Jongin’s body was far outweighed by the desire not to look like an inexperienced idiot. 

“Relax, Soo. It’s just some platonic cuddling.” He wiggled back into Kyungsoo and got comfortable.

Platonic was a nice word. Usually he didn’t get this close to his platonic friends, but hey, if Jongin really liked cuddling then he could at least make an effort. He took a few deep breaths and relaxed. Maybe he should just pretend Jongin was a body pillow. Baekhyun teased him sometimes for cuddling up to his body pillow like it was an actual person. 

Jongin began reading. It was nice to hear Jongin’s deep voice read over the familiar lines. He was good at reading aloud. 

Once he got past the weirdness of it, maybe Jongin had a point. Cuddling was nice. Kyungsoo had heard once that physical human contact was good for people. With the warm solidness of Jongin’s body against his, he could believe it. He took another slow breath and snuggled closer. Jongin kicked a leg back and hooked it over Kyungsoo’s, and then pulled Kyungsoo’s leg in between his own. Kyungsoo felt the top of his thigh press up between Jongin’s legs. Resistance was futile. Jongin tangled their legs together so that he couldn’t get away. Leave it to Jongin to make things slightly sexual just as Kyungsoo was starting to get comfortable. 

Back during freshman year, Kyungsoo had been in a gym class with an extremely attractive senior. It was difficult to endure at fourteen, and over the course of the year Kyungsoo became very very good at suppressing boners. The skill had never been more useful than with the top of his thigh pressed up against Jongin’s balls, and the roundness of the boy’s ass nestled into his crotch. All that was honestly easier to deal with than Jongin’s hand brushing down his arm and settling over the back of his hand. His wound his warm fingers between Kyungsoo’s and squeezed. 

It took a while for Kyungsoo to relax again, but after a while the threat of a boner ceased. Jongin’s thumb traced tiny circles against his hand. It was warm and comfortable. Jongin was right. Cuddling was the best. He heard Jongin stop reading and ask something and wait for an answer. Kyungsoo hummed as if he’d been listening. Jongin said something else. Kyungsoo barely heard him at all. 

It was a miracle Kyungsoo wasn’t hard when he woke up. He still essentially had his dick shoved between Jongin’s ass cheeks when his mother opened the door once again to find them in yet another compromising position. 

“Kyungsoo?” 

“Hrmmph? Mom—fuck.” 

Jongin twisted around and squished Kyungsoo a little. “Hello Mrs. Do. I’m Jongin, nice to meet you.” 

“Hello Jongin, nice to meet you too. I hear you’ll be staying for dinner?” She sounded way too amused. 

“Yes, if that’s alright.” 

“More than alright.” Kyungsoo tried desperately to untangle himself from Jongin. He wasn’t sure which legs were his. “I believe Kyungsoo was going to help me cook.” 

“M’trying.” 

Jongin graciously extracted himself and left Kyungsoo lying face down on the blankets and feeling very warm and very pink in the cheeks. His mom stood in the doorway with raised eyebrows. 

“I’ll be there in a second.” 

“Okay. What are we cooking again?” 

“Uh. Curry? Shepard’s pie? Gyoza? I don’t know.” 

“May I put in a vote for curry?” Jongin asked. 

“Curry it is. Thank you, Jongin.” Kyungsoo’s mother shut the door and Kyungsoo chuckled lifelessly into the blankets. 

“Does your mom think we’re fucking?” 

“No, she knows me too well.”

“What does she know about you that makes her think we aren’t fucking?” 

Kyungsoo winced and tried not to think about the times he had heart-to-hearts with his mother and ended up saying too much. It was nice to be able confide in her, but maybe ‘I’m still a virgin and I don’t see that changing anytime soon because I’m not cool enough for anyone worthwhile to want to fuck me and I’m kind of scared of sex to be honest’ was kind of a weird conversation to have with your mother. He blamed it on the gayness. He didn’t know if he was close enough to Jongin to say any of that to him either. Not to mention some part of him didn’t want to admit his sexual insecurities to Jongin, the king of sex himself. And maybe he also embarrassingly didn’t want Jongin to think sex with him was off the table. 

“Uh…” 

Kyungsoo really hoped Jongin wouldn’t offer to teach him how to sex like he had taught him how to massage and cuddle. Kyungsoo really really wasn’t ready for that. 

“You’re so cute.” His eyes twinkled with mischief. Kyungsoo should really tell him he didn’t like being called cute. Instead he sighed and rolled off the bed. 

“I’m going to go help mom.” 

Jongin headed to the bathroom while Kyungsoo went and met his mom in the kitchen. 

“Cute, Soo.” 

“Do you really have to call me that?” 

“I gave you that name. I can call you whatever variation of it I want. Soosoo.” 

“Mom.” 

“Get over here and chop vegetables. Tell me again why you two aren’t dating.” 

Kyungsoo groaned. “Don’t do this to me mom. It’s not going to happen.” He picked up a knife and began furiously chopping zucchini. Jongin reappeared and sat down at the counter. 

“I like your house, Mrs. Do.” 

“Thank you very much, Jongin. Kyungsoo does a wonderful job helping me keep it clean.” 

“Ooh, he cooks and cleans.” He smirked playfully in Kyungsoo’s direction. “What a catch.” 

Kyungsoo aggressively slid all the chopped zucchini into a bowl and began viciously uncanning garbanzo beans. Jongin giggled. 

“I’ve trained him well. Sometime you should get him to make you his red velvet cupcakes. They’re heavenly.” 

“That sounds delicious. I’d love that.” His smirk was very flirtatious. Kyungsoo frowned. 

Jongin was perfectly charming as Kyungsoo and his mother made dinner, and Kyungsoo could tell that by the time food was served, she was very taken with him. Kyungsoo’s dad rushed in the back door just as everyone was sitting down, looking flustered and ruffled like a true academic, and froze at the site of Jongin seated at the table. 

“You’re not Baekhyun.” 

“Hi, I’m Jongin. Nice to meet you!” 

“Oh. You too.” 

Kyungsoo came over and extracted several shopping bags, a briefcase, and a coat from the man, and then elbowed him towards the table. “Jongin, this is my dad, he’s a literature professor.” 

“Oh! I’m Kyungsoo’s literature partner. We’re doing a project on _The Great Gatsby_.” 

Kyungsoo was mildly worried his dad would put his foot in his mouth and question their book choices since Kyungsoo had already read it, but he didn’t. “That’s a wonderful book! I’m sure you two will get a lot out of it.” 

“Go eat, dad. Curry.” 

“Is it spicy?” 

“A little.” 

“I’ll grab myself some milk. Anybody else want some? Jongin? I know spicy food doesn’t bother these two.” 

“Already taken care of.” Kyungsoo’s mother appeared in the doorway miraculously carrying four glasses and set them on the table. 

Dinner went well. Professor Do only called Jongin ‘Baekhyun’ once, and Jongin giggled sweetly and waved away his apology. Jongin inhaled the curry with enthusiasm and then got seconds. Kyungsoo’s dad went through three cups of milk and a number of tissues, but he got seconds too. 

“What are you boys going to do after dinner? How is the project going?” 

“I think we’re going to keep reading. We’re not done with the book yet, but we’re compiling what we think is important along the way.” 

“I’m halfway through chapter five.” 

Wow, how long had Kyungsoo been asleep? “That was fast.” 

“I was going to drag Soo to a party tonight if we read enough. Maybe if we finish chapter five?” He looked at Kyungsoo hopefully, and Kyungsoo frowned. 

Kyungsoo’s mother smiled evilly and leaned forward, chin resting on her hands. “That sounds fun, Soo, you never go to parties. You should go.” 

“I dunno…” 

Kyungsoo’s dad looked a little lost. 

“But Soo, Kris is going to be there and he’s going to be annoying and I want a quick escape.” 

Out came the puppy eyes. “Jongin…” 

“Please?” And there was the pout. 

“Let’s finish chapter five, then we’ll talk. Dad, what should we know about Gatsby?”

Professor Do looked much more in his element as he launched into social climate and historical context of _The Great Gatsby_. There was a lot to think about with old money vs new money and Gatsby’s potential involvement with the crime scene of the day, as well as things like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of colors and imagery. Kyungsoo counted on Jongin to remember it all. 

After dinner Jongin jumped up to help Professor Do do the dishes, and Kyungsoo listened to him charm his parents with chat about cheerleading silliness while he zoned out watching Jongin’s tan hands work on the dishes in the sink. He had such nice skin. When dishes were cleaned and stowed, Jongin and Kyungsoo settled back on Kyungsoo’s bed and resumed with chapter five. Jongin snuggled up with his face in Kyungsoo’s side and flung an arm over his hips. Kyungsoo put an arm over his shoulders because he figured Jongin would like that. He did. Kyungsoo could tell by the little smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. 

When chapter five was done, it was nine o’clock. “We read a lot today.” 

“Yeah we did. Please go to that party with me, Soo. We can keep writing down important things in class.” 

“You’ll have plenty of friends there who actually like socializing. Why do you want me to go with you?” 

“I was thinking you could save me from Kris. I don’t actually want to stay that long, since Jihyo and I got in a fight last month over Junmyeon, because she’s a petty bitch. She poured her Starbucks all over my backpack because I slept with him while they were ‘talking.’ Never mind that he’s straight, or that he was sleeping with me just to have a better chance with her and the other cheerleaders. The things I do for those girls. They’re so ungrateful.” 

“So you’re telling me you only sleep with these straight boys as a favor to your lady friends? I find that hard to believe.”

Jongin laughed. “Well. I guess you got me there. Maybe I do get a kick out of seducing straight boys. Who’s to say? Anyway, if you come along, I can claim I can’t leave you alone for too long because I brought you and that would be rude, and then I have an excuse to leave early. People might think I’m leaving to fuck you, but something tells me you won’t mind.” 

Kyungsoo snorted. “Nobody’s going to think that. Maybe if I was Kris or Chanyeol or even Baekhyun. But you’re right, I probably wouldn’t give a shit.” 

Jongin looked up at him with a pout. “Why don’t you think people will assume that? Everyone knows I sleep around.” 

“Yes, but everyone also know you won’t fuck just anybody. Your roster is full of people everyone knows and cares about.” The attractive, social kids. Jongin could have anyone he wanted, and he chose only the best. 

Jongin frowned and snuggled closer. “People should know and care about you.” 

“I’d prefer they don’t honestly. High school sucks enough without having to worry about people’s opinions and drama and shit. I don’t have your patience to deal with petty cheerleaders and the Kris Wus or the world. The high school social scene has always looked toxic and shallow to me.” 

“Hmm. I mean, you’re probably right, but there’s something really nice about being a reckless youth sometimes. I feel like I’m in a bad teen movie a lot, but I think I’ll be able to look back at high school and remember that I had fun. Then once I get to college I will have gotten my experimenting and partying done, and I can focus on growing up and studying without wondering if I missed anything. I’ll know how to drink and navigate hookups and stuff.” 

He rolled over and put his head in Kyungsoo’s lap so he could look up at him. “Maybe it’s selfish and shallow of me to get caught up in the glamor. I’m reaping the benefits of money and good looks, but at the end of the day, can you blame me? I get sex and constant validation from the entire school.”

The frequent sex would make Kyungsoo pretty nervous. He wasn’t one to deal with the emotions that would inevitably come with. He didn’t want to end up like Kris: stuck with unreturned feelings that even he was denying. Constant validation, though, that he could live with. 

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me. You treat me and my friends with respect, and that’s all I need to know.” 

Jongin smiled and turned his face into Kyungsoo’s stomach. “Thanks, Soo.” 

“Now I feel shallow for just writing off the high school party scene.” 

“You’re not shallow.” There was a quiet moment where Kyungsoo cautiously carded a hand through Jongin’s hair. 

Jongin spoke again. “Last Saturday after I left your house, I went over to Junmyeon’s. Someone got their hands on their older brother’s weed, like a lot of it. The good stuff. I was in the middle of making out with Sehun and Tzuyu at once when they bust in with all the weed and a box of matches and a bong that Yixing made out of a water bottle. Half the people in the room had never been high before. We went out to the edge of town and squatted behind an abandoned building to smoke it all, and we got so fucking high. Then Yixing drove us around the back roads in his truck because he can drive while he's high. It was warm, the sun was setting, and everything was the most beautiful pink color. I sat in the truck bed and made out with somebody, I don’t even remember who, while we drove through a bunch of empty fields and orchards in the sunset. I remember looking out at the orange-pink clouds while someone held me and kissed my neck and wind whipped through my hair. Yixing was blasting something ambient and bass heavy. It was beautiful. I’ll never forget it.” 

Kyungsoo had never been high, but he felt a deep pang in his chest while he imagined it. A bunch of young, dumb kids, being reckless and happy in the warm, mauve light of the sunset, like something out of a Lana Del Ray video. 

“All kids our age want is freedom, and when they get it they do stupid things with it, but god, it feels better than anything.” 

Kyungsoo looked down at Jongin’s beautiful face. He could imagine how good he would look with white smoke curling from his full lips, with wind whipping through his hair as gold light bathed his tan skin. Such careless, glamourous freedom. Kyungsoo felt like Nick from Gatsby, if Nick had ever cradled Gatsby’s head in his lap while Gatsby pulled him headfirst into his careless, glamourous world. 

“Will you go to the party with me?” 

“I’ll make a deal with you.” 

“Anything you want.” 

Kyungsoo swallowed hard as the possibilities reared at the back of his mind, like standing at the top of a cliff with all the knowledge of what he could do, and knowing that in the end he’d just turn around and walk back the way he’d come. 

“Get me high sometime. And buy me Starbucks on Monday.” 

Jongin grinned. “Done.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jihyo’s house was huge and crowded. They could hear the bass from half way down the block. Everything was decorated in strands of twinkling string lights, ribbons, and balloons. There was glitter everywhere. It looked like everyone from their high school was there, spilling in and out of rooms with loud games of flip cup and beer pong. Out back the pool had been hooked up with a set of color changing lights, and glowed a different color every thirty seconds or so. Everyone had a solo cup. Kyungsoo couldn’t hear anything. 

Jongin kept two fingers hooked in one of Kyungsoo’s belt loops while he wove through the crowd and excitedly greeted practically everyone they came across. Kyungsoo did his best to not look terrified and out of place. Jongin waved away any solo cup that was shoved his way with the excuse, ‘I’m driving,’ and dragged Kyungsoo into the backyard where the music was blasting loudest. The back deck had been transformed into a dance floor where tons of teenagers were grinding on each other and pretending to know how to dance. Jongin pulled him close to yell in his ear. 

“What do you think?” 

“This is ridiculous,” he shouted back, and Jongin laughed and made a cute attempt to pull him onto the dance floor. Kyungsoo flew into defense mode and grabbed the railing of the patio. 

“No!” 

“Don’t you want to dance?” He could barely hear him over the music. 

“I can’t do that.” Standing awkwardly and bobbing up and down while Jongin danced circles around him didn’t sound like fun. 

Jongin rolled his eyes good naturedly, and then his face lit up as a song he liked came on. He planted Kyungsoo by the edge of the deck with a look that said ‘stay’ and then slid gracefully onto the dance floor and turned fluid. Kyungsoo watched as he attached himself to some girl’s back with a sensual grind. She looked back threateningly, saw who it was, and then grinned and ground back. He looked like some kind of wild animal when he danced. Beautiful, graceful, and dangerous. 

Another stunning figure slid out of the crowd like smoke and pulled Jongin in by the back of the neck for a swift peck on the lips. Oh Sehun reminded Kyungsoo of a reptile with his cold, handsome features and his long body. He was dressed in all black and wearing just enough makeup to make him look otherworldly. He and Jongin slotted together beautifully and swayed with the music. A circle formed in the middle of the dance floor and Zhang Yixing set the bar high with some casual break dancing. 

Sehun had just popped and locked his way to the center of the circle when something heavy slammed into Kyungsoo’s side, and Kyungsoo turned his head to find Baekhyun clinging to his arm, drink in hand, looking just about as excited as Kyungsoo had ever seen him. 

“Kyungsoo! What the fuck are you doing here?” 

“I forgot you came to these things.” 

“Chanyeol always drags me.” 

“He loves it!” boomed a voice from behind Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo looked up to find Chanyeol also waving around a solo cup and looking way too excited. 

“Never mind me, you’re the last person I expected to see here. I’m really happy to see you, I’m just confused.” 

Kyungsoo nodded to the circle of dancers, where Jongin had just started dancing. He was the clear crowd favorite, all sexy smirks and perfect swivels of his hips. 

“Ah. Wait. I didn’t even think he could drag you to these kinds of things. Did he guilt you?” 

“He tried. Then he appealed to my aesthetic, philosophical side.” 

Baekhyun’s eyes widened. “I underestimated him.” 

Chanyeol yelled loudly and strode over to where Kris had suddenly appeared on the deck. Kyungsoo pursed his lips in annoyance and went back to watching the dancers. The song finished off with Yixing showing everyone up, and Jongin slid out of the crowd back to Kyungsoo, and looked pleasantly surprised to find Baekhyun there as well. 

“Baekhyun! You’re here. That means I don’t have attach myself to Kyungsoo by the hip.” He glanced over to find Chanyeol and Kris walking towards them, and then turned back around and grabbed Baekhyun’s cheeks. “You ruin everything.” 

Baekhyun looked alarmed until Kyungsoo laughed and assured him he was joking as big arms looped around Jongin from behind and dragged him away. 

Kyungsoo leaned in close to Baekhyun’s ear. “How are things on the Chanyeol front?” 

“Uh. Normal right now? He’s being really bro-y, but he’s on beer three, so I’m guessing I’m going to have his dick shoved into some part of my body at least once tonight.” 

Kyungsoo grabbed Baekhyun’s drink and took a swig, hoping the burn would erase the image of Chanyeol’s dick from his brain. It didn’t work. The beer was cheep and lukewarm. 

“While we were driving here Chanyeol very awkwardly alluded to the fact that he wanted to avoid another one of our ‘accidental’ hook-ups. I quote, ‘let’s make sure we keep things normal tonight, okay?’” 

“Are you going to make sure things stay normal? I mean, if that’s what he wants, it’s kind of creepy if you just wait till he’s drunk and fuck him anyway.” 

Baekhyun frowned into his drink. “I mean yeah, but… I’m drunk too, and when he inevitably kisses me I wish I could turn him down, even if it’s just out of spite, but I know I won’t be able to.” He looked up and stared longingly at Chanyeol’s back as the taller boy waved his beer around and spilled it all over some random drunk chick passing by. 

“You two are a hell of a match.” 

“I know,” Baekhyun said dryly, like he wasn’t proud of the fact. Well, at least he knew it wasn’t a good thing. 

Kris and Jongin were wrapped in each other’s arms. There was a giant hand splayed across Jongin’s ass and another gripping his shoulder. Kyungsoo could tell they were arguing by the way Jongin’s hands were planted on the other boy’s chest and his shoulders were stiff. He didn’t return the pecks Kris dropped along his jaw while he spoke into Jongin’s ear. 

Baekhyun downed the last of his drink and wrapped both arms around Kyungsoo’s waist, which was weird. “I’m making Chanyeol jealous.” 

“Baekhyun, he knows we’re best friends. It’s not going to work.” He gingerly wrapped an arm around Baekhyun’s shoulders. Later he would have to thank Jongin for the cuddling lessons. This would have been even weirder if he hadn’t already been doing it all day.

Chanyeol turned around saw them, and Kyungsoo was surprised to see his smile falter slightly. He made a point of nuzzling into Baekhyun’s head a little while he stared Chanyeol down. Chanyeol blinked and looked uncomfortable. Good. 

Kris and Jongin reappeared at their sides just as the birthday girl herself showed up, looking glassy eyed, flushed happy, and about five years older than she should under all the makeup she was wearing. 

“Jihyo, happy birthday! You look amazing!” Kris didn’t let go of Jongin’s hips as Jongin pulled her in for a hug. He looked petulant. Kyungsoo gave him a disgusted glare. He just glared back and pulled Jongin’s hips against his own while Jongin was trying to listen to a slurred description of her birthday gifts. As soon as Chanyeol and Jihyo started talking about how awesome the party was, Jongin mouthed ‘I’ll be right back’ and Kyungsoo, and then led Kris away by the wrist. 

Baekhyun leaned up to his ear. “You wanna go pool float jousting?” 

 

Fifteen minutes later Kyungsoo spotted Jongin, minus one Kris, standing next to Chanyeol on the side of the pool looking shocked and pleased, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He was on his fourth pool jousting victory. A very wet and grinning Baekhyun on a large blow up swan across from him was soon to become victory number five. Kyungsoo’s pink, potentially defiled flamingo had been very trustworthy so far, and Kyungsoo was still dry. Red light from the pool glowed up and illuminated them both. Someone shoved them off. Baekhyun wobbled a little, and Kyungsoo grinned wickedly and readied his broom. People cheered from the water and the sidelines. Baekhyun looked determined, but Kyungsoo went immediately for Baekhyun’s face with the brush end, and Baekhyun yelped and toppled back into the hot pink water. Kyungsoo kind of wanted to jump in after him, but he had to get into Jongin’s car to go home, so he calmly paddled back to the edge of the pool to be greeted by fans and admirers. 

“You play dirty, Do Kyungsoo!” Shouted a certain noisy tenor from the purple water as Kyungsoo stepped safely back onto dry land. Kyungsoo sent him a rude hand gesture and a wide grin. He passed the broom off to some bro in shutter shades and then walked over to Chanyeol and Jongin, both of whom seemed more than happy with the results of the match. 

“Sorry, Chanyeol, I know getting him wet is your job.” 

Jongin cackled, but Chanyeol was too drunk to process. “Huh? Good job, Kyungsoo! I didn’t know you had it in you.” 

“Me neither!” Jongin pulled him into a tight hug and jumped up and down a little. “And you didn’t want to come! You’re not even wet!” 

“Yeah, I didn’t want to get your car wet. I’m actually pretty hot shit, it’s whatever.” 

Jongin cackled. “Do you want to stay longer?” 

“Not really. I feel like I’ll just start enjoying myself less from here on out. Baekhyun and Chanyeol are going to disappear after this, since Baekhyun is all wet and is going to have to take his clothes off.” 

“Yup, there they go.” 

Kyungsoo turned around to watch Baekhyun and Chanyeol walking back towards the house to get Baekhyun dried off. 

“You weren’t gone for long. Where did you lose Kris?” 

“I gave him the worlds fastest blowjob and then left before he recovered. He’s going to be really pissed, but I hope he got the point.” 

Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose and tried not to think to hard about it for any number of reasons, the least of which imagining how good Jongin must be at blowjobs to get someone off that fast. 

They sang loudly along to the radio all the way back to Kyungsoo’s house. It wasn’t often that Kyungsoo got to show off his voice outside of choir, and Jongin was flatteringly excited about Kyungsoo’s high notes and runs when Beyoncé came on. Jongin was a good driver, even when he was belting to Adele. Kyungsoo liked that in a person. They got back to Kyungsoo’s house before midnight, and Jongin gave him a tight hug at the door. His eyes had been curved into cute little crescents since Kyungsoo had spotted him by the side of the pool. His own cheeks were sore from smiling. 

“I might go back to the party. Sehun and Yixing will want to dance some more, and Zitao might be dtf. Or Hyejin. I’ve heard she’s really fun in the bedroom.” 

Kyungsoo gave a low whistle. “I can believe that. She’s hot as hell.” 

“Her voice is almost as sexy as yours.” 

Kyungsoo’s eyes widened. “I don’t think anyone has ever given me such a compliment.” 

Jongin giggled. “Soo, thank you so much for coming with me tonight. I learned a lot about you. You’re not afraid to go into battle on a flamingo you know people have fucked on.” 

Kyungsoo laughed too. “I figured if people had successfully fucked on it, it was probably pretty stable.” 

“True. I’ll see you Monday.” 

“Yeah, see you then.” 

Jongin skipped back to his car and gave one final wave before driving away. Kyungsoo fell asleep still grinning. 

 

True to form, Kyungsoo didn’t check his phone until Monday morning as he walked into class. One Snapchat from Baekhyun from Sunday morning. It was a picture of him looking very hung-over in a bed that Kyungsoo didn’t recognize. He wasn’t wearing clothes, and Chanyeol’s head was visible, still asleep on Baekhyun’s chest. Beakhyun looked grim. The caption said ‘guess what.’ 

There were also a couple texts from Jongin, both from the Sunday night and earlier that morning. 

**What do you want from Starbucks tomorrow?**

**Soo**

**Soo answer I don’t know what to get you.**

**Soooooooo!!**

Oops. When he walked into class, Jongin was sitting in the seat that was usually empty next to Kyungsoo’s with two Starbucks drinks. One of them was huge. Kyungsoo hoped his was the smaller one.

“Sorry I didn’t answer your texts. I ignore my phone on weekends.” 

“I figured it was something like that. Here’s your venti iced chai latte with soy and two pumps of vanilla with whipped cream and cinnamon and extra organic sugar.” 

“What the fuck.” 

“This is what happens when you don’t answer my texts.” His eyes twinkled with mischief as he handed over the suspicious gigantic iced drink. 

“Holy shit, Jongin, is this just straight up poison?”

“I don’t know. I was too scared to try it.” 

Kyungsoo took a very cautious sip. “That’s actually not that bad. It’s disgustingly sweet, but it’s drinkable.” 

“Ooh, let me try.” He took a tiny sip and winced. “Holy shit that is sweet.” He took another couple sips and handed it back. 

“Between the two of us, maybe we can even finish it. Or at least get half way.” 

Up at the front of the classroom, Kris stomped in glared at Jongin’s empty desk. He sat down angrily and shook his head when Nayeon bravely asked him what was wrong. 

Jongin giggled. “He’s so pissed.” 

“He hasn’t even realized you’re here yet.” 

“That’s probably a good thing.” 

Kyungsoo watched Kris fume silently and glare at Jongin’s desk for most of class. It looked like he’d worked himself up into a fury since Saturday night, and had been planning some kind of confrontation in class that now could not be played out because Jongin wasn’t there. Jongin was in very high spirits. 

Kris realized Jongin was actually in the room about half way through group work. His scary face got about ten times scarier when he was actually angry. Jongin gave him a single passive eyebrow raise. Kris looked like he was about to explode. 

“You think he’s overreacting?” 

“Yup.” 

“I don’t know what he’s so upset about. He got an amazing blowjob and didn’t even have to return the favor.” 

Kyungsoo laughed. “Yeah, you wouldn’t think he’d have much to complain about. He’s probably trying to pass off his hurt feelings as righteous anger.” 

“I’m not sure Kris has feelings.” 

“Of course he does. Pretty sure he’s got feelings for you.” 

Jongin stared down at his notebook. “Yeah, I’m afraid of that. I don’t like hurting people, but he knew what he was getting into. If he thinks I’m suddenly going to start being monogamous just because it’s him, then he needs to get over himself. It’s not my fault he caught feelings. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Kyungsoo nodded.

Jongin looked up at him with a distressed pout. “I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?” 

Fuck. Put on the spot. “Uh. I mean this kind of stuff really isn’t my forte, but he did know what he was getting into, so he really shouldn’t be mad when you don’t like it when he starts smothering you. I mean maybe he has a right to be annoyed about you giving him a blow job just to get him off your back, that can’t be good for his inflated ego, but honestly that was funny and he deserved it.”

Jongin nodded. “I just feel bad telling people to leave me alone, especially when they like me. I just know I’m hurting them.” 

“Maybe it’ll hurt him more to let him keep clinging. He’s just going to get more attached, but he’s going to keep on denying it because ‘he’s straight.’ You’re in kind of a no-win scenario here. Honestly I think the more confused, angry, and possessive he gets, the more dangerous it’ll be for you. If you feel like you need to make him leave you alone, if you need to be cruel to do that, then be cruel.” 

When the bell rang, Kris marched to the back of the room. 

“You’re a bitch, Jongin.” 

Kyungsoo stopped packing his bags and glared up at Kris as Jongin stood to face him. He looked so small next the the hulking basketball player. 

“Kris, I told you I wanted a little more breathing room from you. On Saturday night I told you I didn’t want to hook up, but you wouldn’t back off. Maybe what I did was a little petty and passive aggressive, but you’re not my boyfriend, and I don’t owe you anything. If you don’t like that, then you can leave me alone.” 

Kris looked half way between snarling and backpedaling as fast as he could. “Listen, we should talk at lunch.” 

“Like hell we should. You just called me a bitch. I’m sitting with Kyungsoo to avoid you again.” 

He and Kyungsoo exited quickly, leaving Kris behind looking pissed off and frustrated. 

“I feel bad.” 

“Don’t feel bad, he was a dick to you.” 

“Yeah… Still. I don’t want to hurt him.” He huffed a sigh and gave Kyungsoo a quick hug. “I’ll see you at lunch. Baekhyun and Jongdae don’t mind me sitting with you, do they?” 

“No! Of course not. I think Jongdae is a little star-struck, actually.” 

“Haha, that’s sweet. I’d like to spend more time with you guys.” 

“You should, we’re dumb and low maintenance.” 

“Sounds like exactly what I need.” 

 

Baekhyun and Jongdae were very surprised to see Jongin sitting with them again. Jongin fit right in though. Kyungsoo barely ate any of his fries between the three of them snatching them off his plate as fast as they could. Jongin called Wheein over so he could chat with her about a class and pull a very flustered Jongdae into the conversation. Wheein seemed kind of flustered too. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo watched with matching grins. 

It wasn’t until after lunch that any trouble happened. Kyungsoo was on his way to class when Kris cornered him in a stairwell. 

“Listen, dumbass. I don’t know what you’ve been saying to Jongin, but I just want you to know that even if you make him hate me, he’s still not going to fuck you.” 

Kyungsoo sighed and shifted away from the banister digging into his back. “You’re really trying to make this anyone’s fault but yours, aren’t you?” 

Kris towered over him with his scary eyebrows. Kyungsoo wondered if he was going to get beat up. He might actually look hardcore for once. Bruises and cuts always did end up looking kind of cool. 

“You listen to me, faggot.” Kyungsoo’s eyebrows shot up. “Its real fucking cute that Jongin likes you. But that kid likes attention, and he doesn’t care who he has to fuck over to get it. Maybe he feels sorry for you, maybe he just likes leading you on, I don’t know, but either way he’s never going to fuck you. Jongin fucks attractive people with social lives, not awkward weird-looking choir nerds like you.” 

Kyungsoo exaggeratedly wiped Kris’s spit off his face. 

“I’m not even going to beat the fuck out of you like I could, just because I feel so god damn sorry for you. Do you want to know what the rest of the class thinks of you? Fucking nothing. No one knows you fucking exist. No one cares that you can sing in a choir, or that you can knock drunk people off pool floaties with brooms because you’re too much of a pussy to actually drink. So you can keep telling Jongin that I’m an asshole or whatever you tell him, but even if he decides he doesn’t want to fuck me anymore, that’s not going to get him any closer to fucking you. Do you really think the kid who needs constant validation from the entire class would do something as stupid as have sex with you? The whole fucking school would laugh at him.” 

Ouch. Kyungsoo rolled has eyes. “If you’re going to stand here and spit at me, at least tell me something I don’t already know. Some of us make friends with people for reasons other than sex.” 

Kris’s eyes narrowed. Kyungsoo kept digging his own grave. “Also, between the two of us, only one of us is threatening people in the hallway because the guy he has feelings for won’t sleep with him anymore. I wouldn’t be throwing around the word ‘faggot’ if I were you.” 

It was super effective. Kris’s giant hand sailed through the air and collided with the side of Kyungsoo’s face with sharp slap. It hurt way more than Kyungsoo expected. The blow made his teeth rattle in his jaw, and pain bloomed through his whole head, up behind his eyes. He felt dizzy and disoriented. Before he could even see straight again. Kris’s huge fist landed squarely in his stomach. All the air left Kyungsoo in a strangled whimpery sound, and he found himself crumpled on the floor, clutching his stomach, desperately trying to breath and not throw up. For a minute he was sure some organ somewhere had permanently shut down and he was straight up dying. 

Kris watched him struggle for a minute. “Between the two of us,” he sneered stupidly, “only one of us is being a pussy on the floor right now, so shut up,” and then left looking far too pleased with himself. The second-hand embarrassment over the shitty one liner nearly did Kyungsoo in. 

He sat alone in the stairwell and recovered for a good ten minutes before he felt like he could drag himself up off the floor and to the bathroom to splash cold water on his stinging face. He braved a look in the mirror and was glad to see the aftermath of the slap was basically invisible. He smiled to himself and headed to class in high spirits. 

 

The looks on Baekhyun and Jongdae’s faces when Kyungsoo walked into Baekhyun’s room with Jongin in tow were priceless. 

“Hi guys, I brought Jongin.” 

“Yes, I can see that. Hi Jongin. I thought you’d be at cheerleading practice around this time.” 

“Oh ha ha. I’m a dancer, not a cheerleader.” 

“Ah, that explains why I’ve never seen you in one of those frilly skirts.” 

“Do you want to see me in a frilly skirt, Baekhyun?” He threw him a wink. “I look really good in one.” 

Jongdae snorted. Baekhyun wiggled his eyebrows. “I bet I look better.” 

“Next time I’m over I’ll bring a cheerleading uniform with me and we’ll find out.” 

Both Kyungsoo and Jongdae protested loudly.

“Please god I do not want to see Baekhyun in a skirt. He’d just shake his ass in our faces.” 

“You mean more than I already do? Because I’m not sure that’s possible.” 

Jongin giggled and flopped down on the floor with his head on Jongdae’s back. Jongdae looked up at Kyungsoo with confused alarm. 

Baekhyun was unperturbed. “If anyone should be shaking their ass around, it’s Kyungsoo. I think the Soo booty is beautiful.” 

Jongin’s eyes dropped immediately to Kyungsoo’s hips. 

“Baekhyun if you ever say any variation of my name next to any slang for the word butt again, I’m going to kill you.” 

“Mmm, smother me with dat ass.” 

Kyungsoo threw his backpack at Baekhyun’s face. 

“You guys don’t smoke weed, do you?” 

“Not really, but I want to try it sometime,” said Jongdae. 

“I smoke with Chanyeol sometimes,” said Baekhyun.

“As a unit, no. That’s not something we do.” 

“Hmm. You guys don’t drink or make out with each other either, I’m assuming. What do you guys do?” 

“Our homework.” Said Jongdae. 

“We sing and play video games.” Baekhyun corrected, because they really didn’t do their homework. 

“That’s right, you guys are all in choir, aren’t you? Are you guys any good?” 

“Scuse me,” said Jongdae, and turned over under Jongin to lie on his back. Jongin’s head landed back on his stomach. “Do we know three parts to ‘And So It Goes?’ I can take the high part.” 

“I’ll take low.” Kyungsoo was a tenor II sometimes. He sat down on the bed next to Baekhyun and got comfortable. 

“Sweet, I’ll take middle.”

Jongdae gave them a starting pitch because the fucker could actually find pitches out of thin air. They sang gently through ‘And So It Goes,’ intimate and tender in the quiet room. Their voices blended beautifully together. Kyungsoo wouldn’t be surprised if Baekhyun had dragged Jongdae into the friend group simply because he wanted a third voice for those times when they just sang together, whether it was just choir songs or they were guessing their way through the harmonies of songs they both knew. 

Jongin listened from his place on Jongdae’s stomach, lips parted slightly, eyes drifted half closed. His blond hair fell softly away from his face. How did a human being get so beautiful? He looked peaceful as the bittersweet lyrics filled the room in perfect harmony. Kyungsoo wondered if he’d looked like this as he watched his sunset out of the bed of Yixing’s truck. He hoped Jongin thought this was beautiful too. 

His eyes slipped closed as they sang the final lines. 

“So I would choose to be with you  
That’s if the choice were mine to make  
But you can make decisions too,  
And you can have this heart to break.” 

All four of them sat in silence as the final notes died, afraid to break the stillness in the air. Kyungsoo stared down at Jongin’s face with a lump in his throat. He glanced over at Baekhyun to find the other boy watching him carefully. Baekhyun knew him too well. His looked sympathetic, and suddenly Kyungsoo understood why Baekhyun would never resist when Chanyeol kissed him. 

“So are we any good?” Jongdae asked from the floor, thankfully dissipating the moment. 

Jongin laughed and rolled over to nuzzle into Jongdae’s stomach. “That was amazing. You guys are amazing. Can you three please come live in my house and sing me to sleep every night?” 

Kyungsoo smiled as Baekhyun turned towards the wall, uncharacteristically quiet. Jongdae cautiously pet a hand through Jongin’s hair, and then looked up at Kyungsoo with a ‘this thing is cute’ expression as Jongin hummed in appreciation. 

After a full afternoon of Smash Bros and Mario Kart, Jongin had to leave early and drove Jongdae home, leaving just Baekhyun and Kyungsoo alone together. 

“How’s the Chanyeol thing going?” 

“Saturday morning was ugly.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“You want to hear my whining?” 

Kyungsoo looked over to see Baekhyun sulking where he was slumped against the wall. Baekhyun’s constant good mood was one of the only things that made high school bearable. “Yes, let me hear it.” 

“When he woke up he held me tighter for just a second, and I thought maybe he would, I don’t know, acknowledge his feelings. Stupid of me. Then he realized what happened and got mad. The first two times we hooked up he was like ‘fuck how did this happen? Alcohol is a crazy drug, isn’t it? Now don’t you dare tell a soul ever.’ The third time he was like ‘haha welp, here we are again. Oops.’ We had a really awkward talk that time about him being straight and not letting it happen again.” 

Baekhyun sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This time he looked like he was about to punch a wall. Then he turned around and freaked out at me, about how I kept letting it happen or something. I just started crying.” Kyungsoo actually wasn’t sure Baekhyun wasn’t about to start crying now. “I don’t think he expected that. It’s not like we never bicker about shit. We’re friends, it happens. But usually when he gets pissy I have just snark back until we’re both too mad to talk to each other and then we see something funny and laugh together and then he apologizes and we get over it.” 

He took a shaky breath. “He came over and apologized and asked what was wrong, like an idiot, and I crawled into his lap and kissed him. He didn’t kiss back.” 

“That’s rough, Baek. I’m sorry.” 

Baekhyun hid behind and took deep breathes until he was calm again. “I kind of wish I could believe he was actually straight and didn’t have feelings for me, but I’ve watched his eyes half glaze over while he stares at my lips for months now. And whenever we sleep together, the way he holds me and says my name… I won’t go into details. It’s obvious he has feelings. You’ve met him. You know how easy he is to read.” 

“I believe you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you too.” 

“I keep hoping he’ll come around, but I don’t want to do this anymore. It fucking hurts, Kyungsoo.” He slammed a fist into a pillow. “He fucking knows I like him. Not just after Saturday, I haven’t been subtle for months. I’m always sulky when he acts like fucking me was an accident. I always fucking glare daggers at him when he flirts with people in front of me. But that doesn’t stop him from insisting we’re the best bros to ever bro and nothing is fucking wrong. He drags me along to everything. It’s like he doesn’t fucking care how I feel.” 

He flopped back against the wall, looking defeated. “What do I do, Soo?” 

Kyungsoo sighed. “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you to just ditch him because he’s being awful about this, but I know he means a lot to you. I can’t read your mind. I’m not going to tell you what to do.” 

They sat in a sullen silence for a bit, both stewing in their own problems until Baekhyun spoke again. “Well, I can’t do this waiting and hoping thing anymore. I’m going to avoid him until he comes to me.” He took a shaky breath. “Because he will. If he feels anything like I do, he will.” 

Kyungsoo hoped for Baekhyun’s sake that he did. 

“What about you and Jongin, then?” 

Now it was Kyungsoo’s turn to feel miserable. “I’m fucked, aren’t I? I don’t have feelings for him yet, but they’re coming. Soon I’ll be in the same boat as you and Kris. But I don’t think I’ll be having sex with him anytime soon.” 

“I think he’d have sex with you.” 

“Even if he wanted to, I’m not doing the hook up thing with someone I actually like. It’ll kill me.” 

Baekhyun nodded. “It fucking sucks.” 

They sat in glum silence for a long time. Kyungsoo wondered if he should tell Baekhyun about Chanyeol having feelings for some mystery person. He figured it wouldn’t be new news. “Jongin’s never had sex with Chanyeol by the way.” 

Baekhyun breathed out a long sigh. “I’m really relieved to hear that. I don’t have to dislike him now.” 

“That’s good. Would have made things awkward.”


	4. Chapter 4

The looks on the three present cheerleaders, Junmyeon, and Sehun’s faces when Jongin walked into Jihyo’s room with Kyungsoo in tow were mildly terrifying. Kyungsoo was relieved to see a couple girls dressed in slightly less bubbly clothing sitting awkwardly off to the side. One of them was Hyejin, but he didn’t recognize the other girl. They were more gorgeous than the cheerleaders though. Still terrifying. 

Jihyo had a giant pad of paper in front of her with the rough sketch of a float on it. “Jongin, come take a look.” 

Jongin hauled Kyungsoo over to the sketch, which showed a float with a set of wide round arches held up by columns with lots of gardeny stuff in the middle. 

“This is just one idea, but we’re looking for more.”

“Cool! What do you think, Kyungsoo?” 

Kyungsoo bent down to get a closer look. “I think you’re really good at drawing. It looks really good. Round arches are very much a Roman thing, though. Greeks didn’t really use them. They had columns, but they always just held up flat ceilings, not arches. I think it’s called post and lintel structure.” 

“Oh.” She looked back down at her drawing and frowned. Kyungsoo suddenly blushed and realized he probably wasn’t doing very well if he wanted the group to like him. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean to rain on your parade. It’s a really nice design! People probably wouldn’t notice if you kept them as arches. The Float will look awesome either way.” 

“No, I just didn’t know that. I’ll do another design where it’s flat.” 

“Have we considered making it look like the Pantheon?” Asked Junmyeon. 

“Parthenon,” the girl with Hyejin corrected and Kyungsoo stopped wincing with the need to set him straight. “Pantheon is that domed one in Rome.” 

Junmyeon looked a little sour at being set straight by a girl, especially when he was supposed to be the smartest in the room. 

Jongin stood up and looked around. “We’re missing a lot of people.” 

“Kris didn’t want to come and he wouldn’t tell us why. Same with Chanyeol and his Hermes friend.” Kyungsoo was going to kick the crap out of Baekhyun for not coming. “Tao is busy. Byulyi over there will be Athena, and Hyejin is Hera. Yongsun brought them in, but she’s at a meeting. She’s Artemis.” The cheerleaders were going to be pissed when Yongsun’s girls stole the show. He could already imagine how good Hyejin was going to look in a toga, and Byulyi, already dressed masculinely in ripped jeans and a bomber jacket, would make a fantastic Athena. “Everyone else had after-school activities.”

Jongin knelt down and kept talking about float details with Jihyo, and Kyungsoo stole his nerve and walked over to Hyejin and Byulyi. Hyejin reached up and tugged him down between them so she could rest her head on his shoulder. Kyungsoo was glad he was gay. 

“Good to see we’re not the only odd ones out here,” Byulyi muttered. “I’m Byulyi, nice to meet you.” 

“Kyungsoo, nice to meet you too.” She was too tall to rest her head on Kyungsoo’s other shoulder, but she slung her arm over both his and Hyejin shoulders. 

“I think they only let me in because they wanted my brother to be in charge of construction.” 

“Mmm, that doesn’t explain me though,” Hyejin purred seductively from Kyungsoo’s other shoulder. Kyungsoo was pretty sure everything that came out of her mouth was purred seductively. 

Jongin looked over and raised his eyebrows at the situation Kyungsoo had found himself in. Junmyeon looked at them indignantly and then shared an eyebrow raise a snicker with Sehun. Kyungsoo wanted to leave. 

“Who’s your brother?” 

“Minseok. He’s a senior, but since they let me on The Float, he agreed to help out.” 

“That’s nice.” 

“We’re not making you uncomfortable, are we?” Hyejin purred again, tilting her head up enough that her breath ghosted over his throat. 

“Uh…” 

“You’ll get used to it. Your shoulders make nice pillows.” She gave his bicep a firm squeeze, and her long nails bit slightly into his skin. Kyungsoo was very glad he worked out enough to have at least something in the way of muscles. 

“Anybody have any other ideas?” Jihyo looked over at the cool kids on the bed. 

“Nah,” said everyone collectively. 

“Kyungsoo? Ladies?” Jongin directed at the three cuddling on the floor. 

“I got one,” Byulyi said, and Kyungsoo pursed his lips as Junmyeon and another one of the cheerleaders with long, wavy hair exchanged an annoyed look. “Since this is kind of a competition event since its about football, and there were a lot of competitions and stuff in Ancient Greece, we could draw on that a little. What if we put a big chariot prop on The Float and spray painted it gold? Some people could stand in it, it would be really cool.” 

Hyejin took her head of Kyungsoo’s shoulder and swept a hand through her hair. “I also think we should add a little topography to The Float, since the gods lived on a mountain. It would look way better if it wasn’t flat. We could definitely still add columns, maybe up at the top corners, but I think if we put them all around it will just end up closing The Float off.” 

“Ooh, that sounds really cool. We should try a design like that,” Jongin said enthusiastically. 

Jihyo crossed her arms. “Um. I don’t know about that. If we turn The Float into a mountain, that will be a safety hazard.” 

Sehun and Junmyeon muttered in agreement.

Hyejin’s eyes flashed. 

“I think she was just saying it shouldn’t be flat,” Kyungsoo said, hoping to keep the peace. Jongin agreed. Jihyo glared at him. 

“That sounds like a lot more work,” Junmyeon said. 

“Adding a few more six inch levels and some rock props sounds really easy, actually. Like, minimal work. You’re not the one that’s going to building it anyway. Minseok and I will.” 

“How much help do you guys want?” Jongin asked ignoring the glares of half the room. 

“As much as people are willing to volunteer.” 

“I’ll help.” Jongin looked around expectantly at his friends for other volunteers. 

“Cheerleading season is about to get really busy,” said wavy-haired cheerleader as she slid closer to Junmyeon. 

“I mean I’m already class president, so I don’t have a lot of time,” said Junmyeon. 

There was a silence where Jongin looked really sad. 

Hyejin put her head back on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “If you guys didn’t have time to help get ready for Homecoming, then maybe you shouldn’t have signed up for The Float.” Kyungsoo could see the cheerleaders’ jaws tightening. Jongin was looking increasingly distressed.

“I’ll help,” Sehun muttered. 

“Kyungsoo?” 

“Of course. Baekhyun and Jongdae will help too, probably.” 

Jihyo turned on Jongin with an unnecessary glare. “Jongin, Momo and I would like to talk to you after we’re done sketching.” Wavy-haired cheerleader nodded. That was probably Momo. Kyungsoo was pretty sure she was the cheerleading team’s second in command. 

Byulyi leaned down to whisper in Kyungsoo’s ear. 

“If you think the boys are hostile to you, I promise the girls are ten times more hostile to us.” 

“I have a feeling the girls are going to be hostile to me too,” he whispered back. He caught the third cheerleader, who had very straight, shoulder length red hair, glaring at them suspiciously. 

Jongin reluctantly agreed to talk and then got back to business, looking a bit troubled. He kept glancing over at Kyungsoo. Maybe for support or something. Kyungsoo gave him encouraging smiles when he noticed. 

A sketch with a chariot was complete, and then a sketch that was just a garden with columns that wasn’t flat. An attempt was made at doing a marble hall with twelve thrones for all the gods, but that one was scrapped pretty quickly due to space concerns. Then there was a design for a marble hall on a cloud, which would have lots of sparkles and gold. Kyungsoo didn’t really like that one. 

“Here, let me try.” Hyejin stood and sauntered over to the pad, where Jongin moved aside for her. Kyungsoo caught both Sehun and Junmyeon watching her hips closely. He couldn’t blame them. Byulyi might have been looking too. Sure enough, she leaned down to Kyungsoo and whispered, “I really wish I had her ass,” in his ear. 

Kyungsoo laughed. “Me too.” 

“At least you’ve got an ass.” 

“I do?” 

“Yeah, it’s nice.” 

Kyungsoo blushed. “Oh. Thank you.” 

Hyejin sketched for a while, and then sat back. “Here we have a marble hall on a cloud with a fountain, but its got vines growing all over the columns and lots plants and stuff, so there’s a garden element. We could think about about replacing the fountain with a golden chariot or not, but we’d have a set of steps to make it less flat. It’s kind of a combination of everyone’s ideas.”

She was better at drawing than Jihyo. It looked really good. “I really like that,” said Jongin.

Byulyi and Kyungsoo agreed, and then surprisingly Sehun, followed by Junmyeon. “I like that we’d combine the best of everyone’s ideas.” 

The three cheerleaders in the room had nothing to say for a long tense moment, before Jihyo said in a clipped tone, “Okay then. I’ll post all the sketches on the Facebook group I’m going to create, and then we can vote.” 

“I’m not friends with you on Facebook. Don’t forget to friend me so I can vote,” Hyejin challenged. 

“You don’t get to vote because you did one of the sketches.” 

“Then you and Jongin don’t get to vote either.” 

Jongin saw a fight coming and intervened. “That’s really not fair, Jihyo. The people who worked on the potential float designs deserve a say in what actually gets picked. This isn’t a competition over designs, we’re just trying to get the best float possible that the most of us will love.” 

Junmyeon and Sehun agreed. Jihyo looked murderous. “Fine. That’s done then. Momo and I want to talk to you now.” The three of them left the room. Byulyi lay back on the rug and stared at the ceiling, and Hyejin crawled over and lay down with her head on Byulyi’s stomach. 

“Kyungsoo, come here. You look cuddly.” 

“Uh. I’m really not.” 

“Come on.” Hyejin cocked an eyebrow and held her arms out, and Kyungsoo felt like he didn’t really have another choice but to scoot over and squeeze in next to Hyejin with his head on Byulyi’s stomach, face burning. Hyejin flopped over so she was half on top of him, one of her (amazing) thighs between his legs. Her boobs squished up against his chest and arm. She lifted herself up enough that he could slip an arm under her body and hug back. 

“We’re making the dumb boys jealous, hope you don’t mind,” She whispered in Kyungsoo’s ear, and he fought down a shudder at her sultry voice. Maybe this was how poor Baekhyun felt whenever Kyungsoo used his late night radio show host voice against him. 

“That’s um. That’s fine.” He sort of got it. He hoped they were trying to make an ‘only guys who aren’t assholes get any of this’ kind of statement, and not just a ‘we’d cuddle the awkward nobody kid before we cuddled you’ kind of statement. Kyungsoo had liked it better when his only friend was Baekhyun. 

“You’re like a giant teddy bear.” Said Hyejin. 

Cuddling a girl was more low pressure than cuddling a guy, mostly because Kyungsoo wasn’t nearly as worried about getting a boner, and Hyejin seemed very content to do all the work. Byulyi reached down and played with his hair. 

Kyungsoo and Hyejin had actually drifted off to sleep before Jongin and the cheerleaders came back into the room. None of them looked happy. 

“Soo, I’d like to leave now, if that’s alright with you,” Jongin tried to say as casually as possible through clenched teeth. Hyejin released him. 

Sehun clambered off the bed, away from red hair cheerleader who looked very disappointed that he was leaving. “Can I come with you? Where are you going.”

“Just to my house. You can come if you plan on being a decent person to Kyungsoo.”   
The room at large looked a little stunned. Kyungsoo knew Jongin well enough to know that he probably wasn’t confrontational very often. Sehun glanced at Kyungsoo. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

“I’m not stupid, Sehun. I saw all the significant looks you were throwing at Junmyeon. Kyungsoo did too.” 

Sehun swallowed and looked down. “I’m sorry.” He looked a lot less scary when he was staring guiltily at the floor. 

Jongin looked around the rest of the room in case anyone else had an apology. No one did. Junmyeon was staring back in stubborn silence. The rest of the cheerleaders looked livid. Hyejin and Byulyi were hastily peeling themselves off the floor and grabbing their things. 

“You can come with us, Sehun, sorry if snapped. I’m a little pissed off right now, and I’ll tell you why in the car. 

Kyungsoo took pity on Sehun’s long legs and crawled into the backseat. Jongin was silent for the first part of the drive, but after about five minutes, Kyungsoo finally asked, “What was that about?” and Jongin heaved the angriest noise that Kyungsoo had ever heard out of him. 

“Obviously not everyone was thrilled about my ‘representing more of the class’ idea. I honestly thought they’d get over it, but Jihyo told me that she was angry because ‘the weird kids are taking over the project,’ and she wanted The Float to represent ‘the visions of the people who the class actually likes.’ I’m sorry, Soo, but I’m sure this isn’t news to you.” 

“It’s not, you’re fine.” 

“Sehun will you please text Yixing and tell him I need weed at my house as fast as he can get it there.” 

“Okay.” 

“I don’t understand why she’s so set on pushing people out! The Float is the whole class float, not the cheerleading team’s float. If the people she isn’t friends with have better ideas, then why the hell wouldn’t she want to use the ideas except to be a petty, spiteful bitch? Most of those ideas were hers! All Hyejin did was combine them.” 

“It looked really good,” Sehun tried meekly. 

“Yeah it did!” 

“Is she just upset that fewer of the cheerleaders get to be on The Float because of Hyejin and Byulyi?” 

“Yeah, she’s definitely pissed about that. It just pisses me off when they’re too busy being petty to see how shallow and bitchy they are.” He whipped around a corner too fast, and Sehun and Kyungsoo grabbed frantically for the oh shit handles. 

“Uh, Sehun, do you have some kind of defense for all this?”

Sehun glanced back at Kyungsoo nervously. “N-no it’s pretty shallow.” 

“He’s not trying to put you on the spot, Sehun,” Jongin explained, “He legitimately wants to hear the other side for argument’s sake.” 

Kyungsoo smiled at the back of Jongin’s head.

“Oh. Well, um.” He glanced nervously back at Kyungsoo again. “I guess she’s upset because of her friends that aren’t in it, so she’s looking for any excuse to make things difficult. And, well. We did The Float freshman and sophomore year too. The other classes have the same demographics doing The Floats, so on some level our cheerleaders might be kind of embarrassed, but everyone also thinks that one of the perks of being in our friend group is that we get control over The Float every year. It’s like a thing we do as friends. Bringing in outside people legitimately makes it less enjoyable for the people who look forward to doing this with their friends every year.”

“So it’s an entitlement thing?” Jongin didn’t seem any less angry at all. “They think they’ve somehow earned the right as ‘the cool kids’ to make The Float, which is actually a class thing, completely theirs to do whatever they want with and make it a friend group activity.” 

“Yeah, I guess…” 

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” said Kyungsoo. “I mean I still think it’s selfish and illegitimate, sorry Sehun, but at least I kind of get it now.” 

Jongin was silent. “Well I’m disappointed.” 

Sehun looked at him anxiously for a minute, and then said quietly, “You always expect so much out of our friends, Jongin. They’re just going to keep letting you down.” He glanced nervously back at Kyungsoo. “Especially if you keep… pissing them off.” 

“When do I ever piss them off? Besides this float thing and the Kris thing I mean.” 

“Every time you eat lunch with Kyungsoo and his friends, people get snippy.” There was an awkward silence where Kyungsoo suddenly felt very guilty. “What Kris thing?” 

“You guys don’t know about the Kris thing?” 

“He hasn’t told us anything. He’s been angrier than usual lately.” 

“Yeah well. On Saturday I told him I didn’t want to hook up, but he kept being all handsy, so I gave him a five-minute blowjob and then I spit his cum in a trashcan and left before he was even completely finished.” 

“Oh shit, that’s really funny.”

“He didn’t think so.” 

They pulled up to Jongin’s house, which was really big, and all climbed out of the car. Jongin’s house was modern and roomy with beige walls and hardwood floors. Not as nice as Junmyeon’s but way nicer than Kyungsoo’s. Sehun kicked off his shoes and wandered off down some hallway like he was the one who lived there, and Jongin led Kyungsoo up two flights of stairs to his attic bedroom. He flopped down on the bed looking pouty. 

“I’m glad you’re doing the stupid float with me, Soo, even if everyone else is an asshole. And I mean ‘float’ with lowercase letters.” 

“Thanks, Jongin. Why would there be capital letters?” 

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I know you’re doing The Float for Baekhyun, not me, but you wouldn’t have had to at all if I hadn’t asked you first. I didn’t think… They’re all such nice, fun people until they aren’t.” He looked apologetically up through his eyelashes. Kyungsoo sat down next to him and brushed a hand through his hair. 

“I knew this was going to happen, but I did it anyway. I never expected to be accepted, so it’s fine. I can handle a little hostility, believe me. Don’t worry about me. I’m honestly more worried about you. I don’t want you to have to deal with unnecessary drama with your friends because of me.” 

Jongin cuddled up to his thigh, still frowning. “Some friends they are. I’ve only been friends with you for a few weeks, and I know you would never treat people the way they treat you. And you wouldn’t give me shit for trying to be nice to people, or judge me for who my friends are.” 

Kyungsoo didn’t really want to agree with Jongin and say his friends were horrible people, even if he did secretly think so. “I’m glad you think so. I hope I’m never a dick to you. Let me know if I am.” 

“I honestly can’t see you being a dick to anyone.” 

Kyungsoo laughed and thought about talking shit to Kris in the stairwell. “I can’t see you being a dick to anyone either.” 

“Thanks, Soo.” 

Sehun opened the door carrying a coffee mug full of ice cream. “Yixing says he’s here.” 

“Tell him the side door is unlocked.”

“Okay.” Sehun pulled out his phone and lay down on his stomach on Jongin’s bed. He glanced up and watched as Jongin traced the seam of Kyungsoo’s jeans on the inside of his knee. He looked awkwardly back down at his ice cream. Kyungsoo had never realized how cute Oh Sehun could be when he wasn’t looking all intense and superior. He looked relieved when Yixing finally pushed open the door and stepped into the room, dressed a lot like Jongin in his skinny jeans, toms, and a collared shirt. 

“Hey. Oh, Kyungsoo, right?” 

“That’s me.” 

“Nice to meet you, I’m Yixing. I’m weed. I mean I have the weed.” He sat down next to Sehun and gave him a friendly pat on the ass before he started unloading his satchel. “You ever smoked weed before?” 

“Nope. Jongin said he’d get me high sometime.”

“We’ll make sure you get high. A lot of people don’t get high the first time they smoke, but I’m sure if we give you enough it won’t be a problem.” He pulled an odd looking water bottle out of his bag. It had a pen sticking out the side, attached by air hardening clay, with a tinfoil bowl on the end. Then he pulled a small glass jar filled with a suspicious leafy green substance out of his bag. “If everyone could throw me five bucks for this, that would be great.” 

“I’ll pay for Kyungsoo,” Jongin said, sitting up, but Sehun dug out his wallet and handed Yixing a twenty before Jongin could get to his own money. 

“I feel bad about what happened at Junmyeon’s, let me pay for you guys.” 

“Thanks Sehun.” Jongin crawled over and gave him a hug, and Sehun smiled, which Kyungsoo wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him do before.

“I don’t like it when you’re mad at me.” 

“I don’t like being mad at you. Don’t let Junmyeon turn you into a mean girl.” 

Jongin and Sehun looked almost too good together, both tall and long and stupidly pretty, tucked against each other like they belonged there. Yixing was gorgeous too. Kyungsoo felt like the ugly duckling. 

He was very thankful that he knew how to use a lighter. Making someone else light the bowl for him was the last thing his dignity needed. Taking a hit was pretty intuitive, and with Jongin’s patient instructions he managed to light and pull by himself, and then nearly died coughing as he inhaled the full hit. Yixing shoved a bottle of Gatorade in his face. “I think this is better for harsh hits than water. Don’t worry about coughing, we’ve all been there. I still cough sometimes.” Kyungsoo breathed a sigh of relief as the cool liquid hit his throat, and the pain ebbed. 

Jongin coughed a little too and Kyungsoo felt better. “We really shouldn’t have given Kyungsoo the green bowel for his first hit. No wonder he coughed.” 

Kyungsoo was much more careful the second time around. He let Jongin pull the bowl out for him before he pulled too much and held the smoke in his mouth carefully before slowly inhaling. Then he let the smoke float gently out of his mouth. Jongin watched, mesmerized. 

Jongin’s second hit was beautiful. He pulled deep and closed his eyes, then let his head tip back as smoke curled thickly past his perfect petal pink lips. He inhaled it back up through his nose, and Yixing hummed his approval. Jongin’s lips twisted up into a smirk as little trails of smoke puffed from between his teeth. He looked like a dragon, or a demon from hell. 

Sehun wasn’t one to be outdone, so he blew a pretty ring. It twisted and wobbled through the air like a spectral doughnut until it dissipated. Yixing blew a nice row of spectral doughnuts, one right after the other. Kyungsoo took the bowl from him and frowned. “I really can’t follow that.” 

“Oh my god I think I’m high already,” Sehun groaned, and reached for his ice cream. 

Yixing laughed “That fucking water bottle is the best piece I’ve ever smoked out of. It usually takes me only one hit before I start feeling it.” 

Kyungsoo didn’t feel shit, but he didn’t want to ask what he was supposed to be feeling. It seemed like a noob question. He took another hit instead. Jongin waved the bong away when he tried to pass it. “Take another.” 

Kyungsoo took another. 

“Now hold it.” 

Kyungsoo held it. 

“Keep holding it.” 

Kyungsoo really wanted to breath. 

“Inhale a little more if you can.” 

He choked in as much air as he could, but his lungs were already full. 

“Okay, now you can let it out.” 

As he let it out, something warm and tingling curled at the base of his spine. Jongin’s room seemed different, like he’d suddenly woken up in a different place. “Woah.” 

Sehun and Yixing’s laughter trickled oddly through his ears. “There we go.” 

He passed the piece to Jongin, who took his third hit without any fanciness, and Sehun took a massive hit and had to practically chug his ice cream to keep from coughing. Jongin giggled hysterically. Yixing didn’t even notice. He took an even bigger hit than Sehun without a single flinch. 

“I’m going to throw some more on.” 

“But do we really need anymore?” asked Sehun, voice rough, as he dropped his dishes onto the carpet and fell clumsily onto his side. 

Instead of answering, Yixing just threw more weed into the bowl and then passed it to Kyungsoo. “Take another two.” 

Kyungsoo did, one slow hit at a time, and then found himself staring at the water bottle, not sure if he could see smoke still floating around in the plastic neck or not. Jongin lifted it gently from his hands and took his hit. Sehun looked a little reluctant, but he fought his way off the blankets and took a hit too. Kyungsoo’s eyes drifted back to Jongin. He found the other boy watching him through unfocused, hooded eyes. Kyungsoo wondered if his own eyes were that pink. Speaking of pink. Jongin’s cheeks and lips were both shaded in delicate rose petal color. He looked dazed and half asleep. Even more so than usual. He ran a hand through his hair, and Kyungsoo could see where roots were beginning to come in. 

Something tapped his knee. Kyungsoo ignored it in favor of watching Jongin blink. 

“Kyungsoo, your hit.” 

The thing tapping his knee was the bong. He grabbed it. A lighter landed in his lap. He didn’t know how to use it anymore, but that didn’t bother him. He ended up trying to light it from the wrong side twice before deciding to try turning it around. That worked a lot better. He managed to get a pretty good hit and passed it to Jongin, who stared blankly at the lighter for a full thirty seconds before he remembered how to use it. 

Moving was weird. Kyungsoo dragged himself backwards to lean against the wall, his back ached, and was happy to find that he’d backed himself up against where the pillows were stacked. The world tipped and swirled around him. Yixing dragged thick white smoke from the water bottle and then leaned towards Sehun, so the smoke could slither out of his mouth and into Sehun’s. Why did he do that? Sehun could just have taken the hit himself. How did Yixing know the smoke wanted to be in Sehun’s mouth more? How did it move? Maybe gravity, except that gravity didn’t quite work sideways like that. Yixing would have had to get up on his knees and lean over Sehun to let the smoke tumble like water from between his lips. Something about the image reminded Kyungsoo of nyan cat on his stupid rainbow. He tried desperately to remember what nyan cat’s stupid song sounded like. He’d seen the damn thing so many times, it felt like the kind of thing that should be on call in his memory, but he couldn’t remember the tune. 

Yixing and Sehun’s lips were so close, drifted part way open, white smoke between them, hands drifting over each other’s faces and necks and shoulders. They looked like an old painting, like one of those aesthetic pictures on the internet, all pastel and faded out. They looked like they should be kissing. They were kissing. The last of the smoke floated into Sehun’s mouth, and Sehun tipped forward and slid his lips against Yixing’s. They sloppily licked into each other’s mouths, and white smoke drifted from between their lips in little wisps. Kyungsoo wanted to kiss someone. He’d never kissed someone before. It looked nice. He wanted to kiss Jongin. The light from the window hung heavily in the air, weighed down by the haze of leftover smoke. 

Yixing peeled away from Sehun and whispered something to him, and Sehun giggled and pulled away. He unfolded his unfathomably long limbs and crawled awkwardly towards Jongin. Kyungsoo couldn’t imagine having arms and legs that long. He was having a hard enough time with his own much shorter limbs as it was. 

Jongin laughed as Sehun dragged him closer, and then they were kissing too. Sehun’s fingers fumbled with the buttons on Jongin’s shirt, and Kyungsoo watched his progress slowly as he managed to get three of Jongin’s buttons undone, revealing just a sliver of Jongin’s golden chest. Kyungsoo had kind of expected to see more skin when Sehun was done, but in retrospect he also might have expected Sehun to unbutton his whole shirt. Or maybe he’d just forgotten how shirts worked. 

Jongin rolled over on top of Sehun, and the two of them kissed languidly. They looked so good together, Kyungsoo couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous. He just smiled at the way Jongin nipped gently at Sehun’s lips and grinned. It was touching to see how much Jongin cared about the other boy. 

Yixing’s hand wandered up Jongin’s thigh and squeezed his ass, and Jongin moaned lowly and pressed up into the touch. He had a pretty voice. Kyungsoo wanted to hear him sing. He could teach Jongin how. 

Sehun sat up, and now Kyungsoo could see Sehun’s broad back, his wide shoulders, and Jongin’s knees splayed on either side of his hips, Jongin’s arms thrown over his shoulders. It must be nice to be as tall and as broad as Sehun. Jongin could fit so comfortably in Sehun’s lap. It would be so easy for Sehun to cradle and hold him, to make him feel safe. 

Yixing pressed up to their sides, and Jongin twisted around and pulled him close, pressing their lips together. Sehun flopped back on the bed and joined Kyungsoo in the observer’s party, though he kept one hand on Jongin’s thigh. Kyungsoo watched the way Sehun’s spidery hands splayed over Jongin’s jeans, the way Yixing’s lips caressed Jongin’s. His mouth slid sideways off Jongin’s lips over his cheek, down to kiss and suck at his neck. 

Jongin leaned his cheek against the top of Yixing’s head and looked over at Kyungsoo. Their eyes met. Jongin’s eyes were hazy and red, like he was blissfully happy and barely awake. Kyungsoo wondered if they were having some kind of eye conversation. If they were, Kyungsoo would tell him that he looked beautiful, that his roots were coming in, that this weed stuff was really incredible and he’d love to try it again sometime. Everything felt so good. He smiled. Jongin smiled back. 

It felt like such a long time, they just watched each other, while Yixing kissed his throat and Sehun pushed his hands up both Jongin and Yixing’s thighs. Finally, Jongin gently removed himself from Yixing’s grasp and clambered up the bed, nearly planting a knee in Sehun’s face in the process. Kyungsoo held out his arms for Jongin to crawl into them. 

“You and your friends sing for me, and me and my friends just make out.” 

“Is it weird if I say it was beautiful?” 

Jongin shook his head. “I thought it was beautiful too. Not as beautiful as you guys singing though. The three of us should dance for you. We’re too high though.” He giggled and sank into Kyungsoo’s arms, and even though Kyungsoo wasn’t tall like Sehun, Jongin still fit somehow. The other boy hauled himself up so their faces were close. “It’s your turn, Soo.” 

Kyungsoo had no idea what he meant, but Jongin leaned in closer and closer. He couldn’t possibly want to kiss Kyungsoo with Sehun and Yixing around, but Jongin’s face was so close. Close enough that Kyungsoo could count each individual eyelash as his eyes flickered shut, and then something soft and warm and perfect folded itself around Kyungsoo’s bottom lip. Jongin’s lips were pressed against his. The other boy’s rose petal lips caressed his own. 

So soft. Kyungsoo lifted one hand and slid it over the back of Jongin’s neck, over smooth, warm skin. His mouth pressed back into Jongin’s. The reality of kissing Jongin hadn’t hit him yet, though somewhere at the back of his mind he realized it probably should. But they were high. It was fine, what they did now stood apart from the real world. He could enjoy this, and hold Jongin like he wanted to, and when they sobered up it would just be a beautiful thing they did while they were high, no real world implications. 

Something hot and very wet slid across Kyungsoo’s bottom lip, and for a moment he was very confused as it pressed shyly into his mouth. He closed his lips over it and sucked gently, just to try and figure out what it was. He licked the tip a little. Oh right, licking = tongue, it was probably Jongin’s tongue. He couldn’t help but think about all the times he’d seen this very tongue peaking from between Jongin’s lips and wishing the could feel it somewhere on his person. He smiled into the kiss and pulled Jongin closer. 

Even high, Jongin was a wonderful person to learn how to kiss from. There was a lesson in every tender press, every slide of his tongue, and Kyungsoo almost forgot he’d never done it before. He copied what Jongin did, moved how it kind of made sense to, and just enjoyed Jongin’s soft skin and soft hair under his hands and the way he gasped gently as Kyungsoo pressed in deeper and took control of the kiss. They were both sloppy and disoriented, there was no reason to be self-conscious about his inexperience. 

At some point reality knocked at the back of Kyungsoo’s mind, with something about how kissing Jongin really wasn’t something he would have done if he was sober for a lot of different reasons, some of them pretty good. He got nervous and stopped, instead pressing his lips against Jongin’s forehead and playing with his hair. Jongin nuzzled into his neck and held him tight, and Kyungsoo basked in his warmth. 

Yixing and Sehun were cuddled together at the other end of the bed. Kyungsoo wondered if they’d kissed anymore, or if they just lay together and enjoyed the high. Eventually Sehun hauled himself up off the bed and shook Jongin’s leg. 

“Junmyeon is here. I’m going home with him, okay?” 

“Are you going to fuck him? He’s not bad for a straight guy.” 

“Hey, what’s wrong with straight guys?” Yixing slurred. 

“They’re not as good at gay sex as gay guys are.” 

Sehun laughed. “Why is fucking always the first thing that comes to your mind? I’m not going to fuck Junmyeon. He’s definitely straight. He makes an exception for you only because he knows no one will question it. He gets weird if I even touch him though.” 

“For someone so smart, Junmyeon’s kind of an idiot,” Yixing grumbled. “I think I’m going to head out too.” 

As soon as the door closed behind them, Jongin gave Kyungsoo a few more little kisses before snuggling into his neck and falling asleep. The room was still hazy with old smoke. Everything seemed off-kilter and strange, warm and fuzzy, and Jongin’s body felt perfect in his arms. Kyungsoo managed to grab a stray blanket and pull it over their waists, and then he closed his eyes too. 

 

Two hours and a nap apparently did not mean sobriety. It just meant the sun was much lower in the sky, Kyungsoo’s glasses were askew and digging into his cheek, and he definitely didn’t feel casual about making out with Jongin. Speaking of, Jongin muttered something sleepily into Kyungsoo’s sweaty t-shirt. Kyungsoo could feel his lips move through the fabric. 

“Sorry, didn’t catch that.” 

Jongin cracked his eyes open and squinted up at Kyungsoo. “I said… we should get up. And. Food?” 

“You’re the one who’s still asleep. I’d be down for food.” The room spun as he sat up, leaving Jongin yawning on the pillows. Their legs were still tangled together. Jongin’s hand stayed resting on his back. “How come every time I wake up with you, I can’t fucking move?” 

Jongin laughed and wiggled his legs around. Kyungsoo wiggled his around too, and with enough wiggling they managed to free themselves. Then it was just a fight with the blankets to get them both out of bed. Jongin sat up and rubbed his eyes sleepily, lips pouty, hair messy, which would have been adorable except the way his shirt was half way unbuttoned made Kyungsoo become hyperaware of how horribly dry his mouth was. He stretched, pulling his open, and Kyungsoo had to look away. 

“I’m sticky.” Jongin’s voice was rough with sleep. Or smoke. Either way it was hot. Apparently when Kyungsoo decided he had feelings he went all in. He hoped it was just the weed hurtling him towards a crisis. He took off his glasses to clean them. Jongin was easier to handle when he was blurry. 

“Me too. The blanket didn’t help.” 

Jongin clambered off the bed and dropped his shirt on the floor, and Kyungsoo was faced with the hardest decision in his life: whether or not to put his glasses back on. He froze up in a panic, and by the time Jongin had a white shirt pulled on over his head the opportunity had passed. “Would you like a dry shirt?” 

“That would be nice.” 

Jongin tossed him a very soft black t-shirt, and Kyungsoo realized he would have to take off his shirt in front of Jongin in order to put on the new one. Things just kept getting worse. And then Jongin took his pants off. Kyungsoo yanked his shirt over his head as a distraction and pulled the black shirt on as fast as possible. “Wow, this is comfortable.” 

“H&M has the nicest t-shirts for really cheep. That shirt looks good on you.” 

“Thanks. I just wear what my mom buys me.” 

Jongin laughed and sat back down on the bed, now wearing a pair of black sweat pants. He looked adorably cozy, which was a far more manageable look than sleepily rumpled. Kyungsoo put his glasses back on, and Jongin’s adorable happy smile made him regret it. Note to self: ability to handle Jongin greatly decreased while under the influence of Marijuana. “Let me take you shopping sometime.” 

“Only if you let me set a price limit.” 

“Okay.” 

“Like fifty bucks.” 

Jongin’s eyebrows shot up. “Have you ever gone clothes shopping?” 

“Yes, but I have clothes. I don’t want to spend a butt load of money on something I already have.” 

“Ugh, you’re so sensible. Fine. I like a challenge.”

They dragged themselves downstairs to warm up leftovers, which meant digging around in a stack of to-go boxes in the fridge from various restaurants and warming up what looked good. “My parents go out to eat almost every night, my sister too, so most of what I eat is their leftovers.” 

“You should learn how to cook.” 

“I’ll teach you how to shop if you teach me how to cook.” 

“Is there something wrong with the way I dress, Jongin, are you trying to say something?” 

Jongin giggled. “You dress fine, I’m just saying you could dress better.” 

“You don’t like my cheap lazy look? Hoodies, t-shirts, and jeans aren’t good enough for you? At least I don’t wear tennis shoes every day.” 

“Yeah, thank god. If you did I would have forced you to change it by now.” 

Kyungsoo had traded his clunky tennis shoes out for knock-off vans back in freshman year and hadn’t looked back.

“I like it when you wear sweaters, though. You should wear more sweaters.” 

“You like the dad look? Sweaters and glasses?” 

“You rock it.” He pinched Kyungsoo’s cheek. Kyungsoo blushed. The microwave dinged, and Jongin hopped up to go deal with food before Kyungsoo could get too embarrassed. 

Kyungsoo’s hazy mind registered the sound of a door slamming and heels clicking on hardwood floor, and then a smartly dressed young woman marched into the kitchen. She looked a lot like Jongin. She stopped and pulled him into a hug. 

“Hello, sweet, cute, precious, adorable little bear.” 

Kyungsoo snorted and clapped a hand over his mouth, and Jongin whined and tried to shove her off. “Stoooop why are you embarrassing me like thiiiisss. Kyungsoo this is my older sister, Jungah.” She seemed to notice him for the first time and her face lit up. “She likes to torment me in front of… people.” 

“Ooh, this one is different.” She released Jongin and joined Kyungsoo at the kitchen island. 

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Kim.” Kyungsoo tried not to think to much about ‘this one is different.’ No doubt she was comparing him to all the other attractive strangers that drifted through Jongin’s kitchen. 

“Nice to meet you, too. Is that Jongin’s shirt?” 

“Uh. Yes, but I promise it’s not what it looks like.” 

Jungah turned around to raise her eyebrows at Jongin. 

“It actually isn’t, sis. We got high and fell asleep and it was warm so we woke up all sweaty.” 

She turned back around to Kyungsoo and pinched his cheeks. “I like your glasses.” 

“Thank you.” 

“You’re not very tall.” 

“Uh.” 

“He’s so cute, Nini.” 

Goddammit. 

Jongin pushed a plate of food in front of Kyungsoo. “Why do you have to do this to my friends? He’s really nice, too. Don’t torment him.” 

“Friend? Kris kind of friend? Jihyo friend? Junmyeon friend?” 

Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose. “None of the above, I hope.” 

Jongin shook his head. “Probably closer to Sehun or Yongsun.” 

Jungah looked impressed. “That close? Why on earth haven’t I seen him before? Never mind, I can tell he’s special. Look at those lips!” She took his chin in her fingers and brushed one long red fingernail over his bottom lip. Jongin watched it closely, and Kyungsoo figured he must be imagining the slight blush in his cheeks. 

“Jungah, leave him alone. I’m sorry, Soo.” 

“I-it’s fine.” 

She shook Jongin off and circled around next to Kyungsoo to wrap an arm around his shoulders. She was taller than him too, but it might have been the heels. “I’ll make it up to you, Kyungsoo. Do you have a cute pet name for him yet, since he has one for you?” 

“No…?” 

Jongin put his face in his hands and groaned. 

“I call him Nini. He’s my little bear.” 

“That’s really cute, holy shit.” 

“He loves it.” 

“I do not! Stop!” 

“He loves it,” she whispered, and then released Kyungsoo and marched out of the room. “You two smell dank as fuck!” She yelled on the way. 

“I like your sister.” 

Jongin laughed and cautiously came out from behind his hands. “I love her so much, but sometimes I want to strangle her. She loves embarrassing me in front of my friends.” 

“Little bear suits you somehow. Do you love it?” 

Jongin hid his face in his hands. “I have mixed feelings.”

“Nini?” 

Jongin giggled. Kyungsoo’s heart did a frantic little summersault. 

“And you have the nerve to call me cute.” 

“Shut up.” Jongin muttered with an obvious blush and went back to the microwave to get the second plate of food while Kyungsoo tried to stomp down all the cooing and flapping that he wanted to do. 

Leftover food was good. Kyungsoo wished they were in his own kitchen so he could have cooked something for them. After they were done Kyungsoo was feeling more sober, which was good, because Jongin looked really cute in a t-shirt and sweatpants. 

“I’m still too high to drive you home. Yixing really knocked me out with that stuff. Do you want to stay the night? I have spare toothbrushes and stuff. We could finish reading the book.” 

Well, it wasn’t like they hadn’t already slept together several times. “That’s a good idea, I’ll text my mom.” 

Two chapters of Gatsby took forever to get through, and Jongin’s focus wasn’t very good, but somehow they managed to pull through the last pages of chapter seven which Jongin whining indignantly. “What a terrible ending!” 

“That’s kind of the point I think. Daisy’s a bitch.” 

“But remember what Nick said at the beginning of the book, about not judging people.” 

“True, but also Nick didn’t judge anyone at first and then two people died and nobody cared. I think he’s much more jaded by the end of the book.” 

Jongin groaned and rolled around on the bed looking distressed. “I hate it.” 

“I love it, but let’s talk more about it in class. I’m tired.” 

“I want to do a sheet mask. Do you want to have spa night?” 

“I’ve… never done that…” 

Jongin dragged him into the bathroom and forced him through a very detailed skincare routine. Kyungsoo found himself lounging back on the bed with a sweet smelling cotton mask on his face, and feeling more gay than he ever had in his life, including the time he’d made out with a boy.

“What next? Do we paint each other’s nails? Talk about boys?” 

Jongin laughed and dropped back to use Kyungsoo’s stomach as a pillow, head landing right on the big purple bruise where Kris punched him. Kyungsoo winced and did his best to ignore the steady twinge of discomfort. Jongin had his hair back in a headband and he looked ridiculous. Also adorable. It kind of made up for how silly Kyungsoo felt. 

“Can you believe Kris isn’t telling anyone what happened?” 

“Oh shit, we really are going to talk about boys. I don’t think Kris wants people to know you made him cum in five minutes. Or that you’re done with him. I think that’s probably embarrassing.” 

“All true.” Product dripped from Jongin’s mask onto Kyungsoo’s shirt. “Any news on Chanbaek?” 

“Chanbaek? Oh. Chanyeol and Baekhyun. Yeah, that’s going poorly.” 

“Chanyeol’s been in a bad mood for a week.” 

“Baekhyun isn’t talking to him.” 

“Ouch.” 

They sat in silence and Kyungsoo adjusted his mask because it was lifting off his cheeks in places, which probably made it less effective. 

Jongin spoke. “You’re a good kisser.” 

Oh Jesus, Kyungsoo had been planning not to mention that. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” 

Well, that was a pleasant surprised. Kyungsoo was pretty pleased with himself. “Weird. I’ve never done that before. You too, by the way.” 

“Thank you. Was that really your first kiss?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh. Sorry?” 

Kyungsoo reached down and snapped his headband against his head. “Don’t apologize, it was nice. That’s going to make for a great first kiss story.” 

“Haha, good. My first kiss was in sixth grade. This girl had a crush on me and her friends convinced me to kiss her for her birthday. So I kissed her behind a tree at recess. After that she insisted we were dating for like two months, even though the only person I wanted to kiss at the time was Sehun.” 

“That’s the cutest, dumbest, most middle school thing I’ve ever heard. When did you finally get to kiss Sehun?” 

Jongin laughed and peeled his facemask off. “By the time I got to kiss Sehun I was way over my crush and we were both in ninth grade. One time when we were both really drunk I told him how bad I had it for him when I was twelve. If you think I’m cute when I’m flustered, you should see him. Drunk, flustered Sehun almost had me crushing on him all over again.” 

Kyungsoo laughed and peeled his own mask off. “My face. It can breathe. Do I get to wash this off now?” 

Jongin barked indignantly. “No! You let it soak in! You can’t just wash it all off and let it go to waste.” 

“But my face is gooey.” 

“That means it’s hydrated! I didn’t give you one of my precious face masks so you could whine about it, you ungrateful brat.” He threw his wadded up face mask at Kyungsoo’s face. 

“I didn’t know faces took so much maintenance.” 

“This perfect complexion takes work, Soo. Be thankful you get a special behind the scenes look at what goes into all this flawlessness.” 

“Can we go to sleep now?”

“First we have to do the rest of the skincare routine.” 

“Fuck there’s more? I’m tired, Nini.” 

Jongin giggled and repeatedly slapped Kyungsoo’s leg until Kyungsoo escaped by rolling off the edge of the bed.

It took another half an hour to finally get into bed. Jongin turned out the lights and then wrapped himself around Kyungsoo like an octopus, gooey face smashed into his neck. 

“Jongin, can’t breathe.” 

“Sorry, Soo.” He kept wiggling. Kyungsoo finally took over and wrestled until he managed to accomplish big spoon position, with his forehead pressed between Jongin’s shoulders and an arm wrapped around his chest. Jongin hummed and laced their fingers together. “Gnight, Soo.” 

“Goodnight, little bear.” 

“Oh my god.” He sounded annoyed, but Kyungsoo could hear a smile, and Jongin wiggled just a little bit closer before he settled down and drifted off to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Another Starbucks cup was waiting for Kyungsoo when he got to class on Monday. This one was a simple London fog latte, which was much better than the disgusting chai thing from the week before. Jongin adjusted the collar of Kyungsoo’s pullover when he sat down. 

“Thanks, mom.” 

“Your welcome, sweetie, how was your weekend?” 

“Lazy and unproductive. I took Baekhyun go-carting yesterday to cheer him up, so that was fun. I’m really sore today though. How was yours?” 

“It was fine. I’m still mad at my friends, so I just stayed in and hung out with my sister a little. She says hi, by the way.” 

Kyungsoo was actually really happy that Jongin’s sister liked him. He hid a grin by sipping his London fog. It was delicious. “Tell her I say hi back.” 

“Will do.” 

Nayeon and Kris had their heads bent together with a couple other girls, occasionally glancing back in Kyungsoo and Jongin’s direction. One of them covered their mouth to muffle laughter, eyes wide with surprise. Kris also looking amused. Kyungsoo got the feeling they weren’t talking about Jongin’s blowjob prank from the week before. He glanced over at Jongin to see if he had an explanation, and found him staring hard at his own coffee, looking a bit red. 

During group work Jongin wasn’t focused. Kyungsoo eventually let him fuck around on his phone while he completed the bulleted list for the final chapters. When the bell rang Jongin began packing up his stuff without a word. 

“Um. Jongin? Here’s the list of stuff, if you want to go over it and add anything. Or if you just want to do it in class on Wednesday, that’s fine too.” 

Jongin took it, frowning. “Thanks, Soo. You really didn’t have to do this by yourself, I’m sorry about being distracted.” 

“It’s fine, everybody gets days where you just don’t want to work.” 

Jongin glanced anxiously at the front of the class. “Yeah. Guess I’m just tired.” 

Kyungsoo opened his mouth to say ‘see you at lunch,’ but then realized he didn’t want to assume Jongin was going to sit with him. He felt like the awkward kid who shouldn’t be talking to Jongin again. It was a weird whiplash after having such a nice day together on Friday. “I’ll see you later?” 

“Yeah, see you later.” He smiled and ruffled Kyungsoo’s hair, and then wandered out without looking at any of his friends. 

By the time lunch rolled around, Kyungsoo wasn’t really hungry. Baekhyun had his food pushed away and his head on the table. Jongdae looked between them with his worried eyebrows and didn’t steal a single fry. 

Kyungsoo was surprised when Jongin slid into the seat next to him and gave Kyungsoo’s thigh a squeeze under the table. “Hi guys. Baekhyun, are you okay?” 

“Hmm.” 

“Um. If it makes you feel any better, Chanyeol has been moody and distant all week.” 

Baekhyun glanced over at the other table. Chanyeol had his hood up and was picking at his lunch. Baekhyun sat up and shook himself just the hint of a smirk. 

“Serves him right.” He took one of Kyungsoo’s fries. 

He and Jongdae launched into a discussion about which soprano was actually the best. Jongdae insisted it was Wheein. Kyungsoo knew for a fact that Baekhyun thought it was Wheein too, but Baekhyun apparently thought agreeing would be less fun. Instead he insisted the best soprano was Jessica. Jessica was flashy and popular, but Wheein was definitely better. Jongdae looked more and more distressed. 

“But Baekhyun, Wheein’s high notes are always prettier and her high and low ranges are consistent. Jessica’s high notes sound completely different than her middle range. Her tone gets really thin and squeaky. She just gets the solos because she’s pretty and everyone loves her, but she’s boring and basic.” 

“So Wheein isn’t pretty?” 

“What? No, Wheein is really pretty, but that’s not why she’s good. Why are you doing this to me?” Jongdae’s argument gave way to whining. 

Jongin stayed curled around his phone, looking anxious. 

“Jongin, are you okay?” 

Jongin nodded slowly and didn’t look away from his phone. “I’m texting Sehun.” 

“Is… Sehun okay?” 

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t he be?” 

“You just look upset. Sorry if I’m prying.” 

“You’re fine.” 

Kyungsoo went back to watching as Jongdae shook Baekhyun by the shoulders while Baekhyun giggled. 

Sehun appeared on the seat on Jongin’s other side, and leaned in to talk to him under his breath. Kyungsoo caught “Jongin, I’m really sorry, I didn’t know people would…” before Jongdae whined especially loudly, and Kyungsoo did his best to tune them out. Yixing appeared too, and Baekhyun and Jongdae stopped whining and looked at Kyungsoo for some kind of explanation. Kyungsoo shrugged and poked his food with a fork. 

The three boys muttered for a bit while Kyungsoo stared into his meatloaf, and then stood to leave. Sehun patted his shoulder on the way, and Yixing bent down to give Kyungsoo a quick, one armed hug, and whispered “sorry,” in his ear. That basically confirmed Kyungsoo’s fears. He took off his glasses and put his face in his hands as they walked away, stomach churning. 

“Soo?” 

“This is about what happened while we were high on Friday, isn’t it?” 

“…Yeah.” 

Baekhyun cleared his throat. “Okay, a couple things here. First, you got high and didn’t tell me? Second, what happened while you were high and why is it causing drama? And third, and most importantly, you let him call you Soo? You actually hurt me when I call you that.” 

Kyungsoo and Jongin ignored him. 

“Sehun and Yixing didn’t think it would be a big deal and mentioned it to Junmyeon.” 

“And now everyone is making fun of you?” 

“I’m really sorry, Soo. I know I’ve been acting weird all day. I promise its not because I’m embarrassed about it. I mean I guess I am embarrassed but not because I think they’re right. I don’t think they’re right. But everyone’s just… I don’t know, I’m sorry.” 

Kyungsoo wanted to hug him, but figured maybe that would make things worse at the moment. “Hey, it’s okay.” 

“What’s going on?”

Kyungsoo looked over at the table of cool kids. A couple of them were watching them closely, including Jihyo and Junmyeon. Kyungsoo was honestly a little surprised. Even if Jongin made an unpopular choice or two, he would never have predicted they would turn on him. It had always seemed to Kyungsoo that they would just go along with whatever he did, or at least ignore the choices they didn’t like. Minor teasing, not outright hostility. 

“Wait, they’re making fun of you for kissing me, but you’re still sitting with me?” 

Jongin blinked in surprise. “Yeah! I couldn’t just cave to them and then look you in the eye and pretend to be your friend. I’m not embarrassed. They’re just… being mean. And I don’t like it. I’m only being cold because I don’t want them to be meaner. I’m sorry.” 

“You guys kissed?” Jongdae and Baekhyun looked like owls with matching bugged out eyes. Kyungsoo snorted. 

“We were really high and everyone was making out with each other.” 

“But they aren’t making fun of Sehun and Yixing. You only kissed Jongin.” 

“Well yeah, because apparently kissing me is social suicide. But we knew that already. Jongin apparently didn’t get the memo.” 

Jongin groaned violently shook Kyungsoo by the shoulders. “I didn’t think they would care. I don’t care if they care.” 

“I mean you obviously do,” said Baekhyun, and Jongin flopped onto the table in despair. 

Kyungsoo wasn’t going to lie and say it didn’t hurt, but again, no new information. It was just further proof that Jongin was out of his league. Jongin was still sweet and wonderful, but it had to be hard to have all of his friends suddenly making fun of him, no matter what the cause was. 

“Okay listen kid.” He hauled Jongin up off the table and turned his face to look him in the eye. “Don’t let them do this to you. You are their god, they worship you like the second coming of Christ. You go over there and whine and complain and tell them they’re all horrible people and guilt them into shutting the fuck up.” Jongin pouted and opened his mouth to protest. “Thank you for sitting with me this morning and sitting with us at lunch, but you don’t have to prove anything to me, I know you’re wonderful. I’m not letting you dive into the realm of sad and outcast just because you kissed me while you were high. It’s not fair.” 

“Soo, they’re going to make fun of you and make me cry because they’re mean and wrong.” 

“You can tell them you only kissed me because you were high and you regret it. I give you permission to do that.” 

“I would never! I could never do that!” Jongin looked adorably offended. Kyungsoo opened his mouth to tell him to do it anyway and just ended up smiling really hard. Jongdae said “aww.” 

“Okay, but I still think you can make them shut up. You’ve had them wrapped around your finger for years. Junmyeon and Jihyo are trying to take take your crown from you. Don’t you let them, Kim Jongin. Little bear. You go tell them who’s in charge.” 

Jongin pouted hard. He was so cute Kyungsoo almost giggled and flapped his hands around like a penguin. He resisted. Baekhyun didn’t. 

Kyungsoo grabbed his shoulders and put on his best mom voice. “Nini…” 

The pout melted into a shy smile. “Okay fine.” 

Jongdae and Baekhyun collapsed into puddles of goo. Jongin stole several of Kyungsoo’s fries. “I’ll do it after school. Everyone is going to go hang out at Jihyo’s house. I think you’re probably right, with enough tears and guilt I can make them all feel really bad.” 

“Use that deadly pout.” 

“I will.” 

 

Baekhyun was back to sulking as they all piled into his room sans one Jongin. Sulky Baekhyun, anxious Kyungsoo, whiny Jongdae. 

“You guys aren’t as much fun as you were two weeks ago.” 

“Why aren’t you with your other friends? Oh wait.” 

Jongdae gasped in offense. 

“Baekhyun, that was actually pretty mean.” 

“Sorry, Jongdae. I wish we were better company. Thank you for sticking around anyway.” Baekhyun crawled onto his bed and curled up on the blankets. Kyungsoo wondered how Jongin was doing. He really hoped his advice didn’t make things worse. If they just laughed at Jongin some more and made him feel even worse Kyungsoo would never forgive himself. He felt like an anxious parent with a child in an important audition. What he wouldn’t give for a nice Jongin cuddle. Baekhyun looked like he could use a cuddle too. He climbed onto the bed behind him and snuggled up to his back. 

“Kyungsoo are you spooning me?” 

“I’m nervous, okay? I’m worried about Jongin.” Baekhyun was a lot smaller than Jongin. He actually fit against Kyungsoo’s front pretty well. Very comfortable. 

“Since when did you cuddle?” 

“Jongin sort of forced me to learn.” 

“Are you sure you aren’t dating him?” 

“Very sure, Baekhyun.” The room was quiet for a bit as Jongdae sighed and pulled a textbook out of his bag. Silence didn’t help Kyungsoo’s anxiousness. 

“Guys.” 

“Yes, Soo?” 

Kyungsoo gave Baekhyun a sharp slap on the chest because it was what he could reach. 

“Don’t call me that.” 

“Ouch, sorry. What were you going to say?” 

“I’m gay.” 

There was an awkward silence. 

“Yeah, Kyungsoo, we know. Is there a reason you’re bringing this up while you spoon me for the first time ever?” 

Kyungsoo laughed and pulled Baekhyun closer. “Yes, darling, forget Chanyeol. Let’s run off to Vegas and get married.” 

“Ew. Get off me.” 

“Seriously though, I know you know, but I don’t think I ever actually came out to you. I just think we both always kind of knew we were both gay.” 

“I think it had something to do with us talking about boys together.” 

“Probably. Remember when we both had a crush on that one guy back in middle school? And we made that Pearl Fishers-esque pact that our crush on him would never get between our friendship?” 

Jongdae snorted. “Well if the mutual crush on the same boy didn’t give away the gayness, then the friendship pact definitely should have.” 

Kyungsoo and Baekhyun laughed. 

“I guess I’m bringing it up because I really, really like Jongin.” 

“We’d noticed.” 

“And you two are far more likely to get with the people you guys have crushes on, since Jongin’s way out of my league.” 

“I hate to say it, Soo, but he is. His friends might get over him kissing you while he was high, but they’d destroy him if he dated you. Not to mention he doesn’t really date. He might have sex with you.” 

Kyungsoo winced. Jongdae made a noise of distress. “Talk about harsh. If I’m ever in this kind of situation, please break the hard truths to me gently.” 

“I don’t want to just have sex with him though. I want to make him soup when he’s sick and make friends with his sister and cheer him up when he’s sad. I even want to see him in princess mode, because I know he can be petty and manipulative. But I think it’s kind of cute.” 

He sat up quickly and Baekhyun protested as the warmth left his back. “Let me show you guys something.” He lifted up his shirt just high enough to reveal the ugly bruise on his stomach, under his sternum and between the wings of his ribcage. 

Jongdae yelped and got up to get a closer look. Baekhyun poked it. Kyungsoo smacked him. “How did you get that?” 

“Kris Wu punched me after Jongin stopped hooking up with him. Don’t tell Jongin, okay? I know he’ll just feel bad and then he’ll confront Kris, and I don’t want Kris to have something else to gossip with his friends about.” 

Both boys stared at the bruise, frowning. Jongdae’s eyebrows had never been more worried. “You’re really fucked, Soo.” 

“I know. Don’t call me that.” He collapsed back down on the bed and pulled Baekhyun with him. “Get in here, Jongdae. You’re part of the team now.” 

Jongdae snuggled up behind Kyungsoo like a happy cat. He was actually great at cuddling. Kyungsoo wasn’t sure why they hadn’t all don’t this sooner. 

“Do you guys think I have a chance with Wheein?” 

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo answered in unison. “Yes.” 

“Really?” 

“Definitely. Ask her to the homecoming dance.” 

“Be cute and funny about it. She likes cute and funny.” 

They mused over Homecoming dance proposal ideas for a while and then lapsed into another comfortable silence. Kyungsoo was beginning to feel a bit too warm. 

“Are you guys ready to help with The Float construction tomorrow afternoon?” 

More silence.

“Will Chanyeol be there?” 

“I don’t know. He might still be avoiding you. Doesn’t matter, they really need volunteers. Wheein’s friend’s brother is in charge.” 

“I’ll be there.” Jongdae said. Baekhyun made a non-committal noise. 

“Hyejin and Byulyi will be there. Yongsun too, maybe. Jongin and I will be there, probably Oh Sehun. Junmyeon unfortunately. Probably not the cheerleaders.” 

Baekhyun huffed. “Byulyi and Hyejin are fun…” 

“You’re coming, whether you want to or not. If Chanyeol is there we’ll just show him your having a good time without him. We’ll make him miss you. You can wiggle your nonexistent ass at him. Now I’d like to rotate this spoon train because I’m really hot. Jongdae go be the littlest spoon.” 

Jongdae got up grumbling. “Why do I always feel like the idiot in this trio? Just because you guys have been friends for ages and I’m the new kid doesn’t mean you get to boss me around.” 

Baekhyun yanked him down and snuggled aggressively into his back with all four arms and legs. Jongdae shrieked. Baekhyun bit his shoulder. Jongdae shrieked again, but louder this time. The cuddle pile was destroyed. 

Kyungsoo got a text while he was making the three of them spaghetti for dinner that night.

**From: Jongin  
Lmao they’re so dumb. I cried a little and talked about my feelings and they all   
apologized and looked really guilty.**

“Guys, Jongin did it.” 

Jongdae stopped trying to kill Baekhyun long enough to look up and grin. Baekhyun gave a thumbs up from the headlock he was in. Chaos resumed. Kyungsoo smiled and went back to the spaghetti as Baekhyun screamed. 

 

Byulyi and her older brother already had a very basic framework of The Float set up, a wide, flat trailer about ten feet across and twenty feet long. They had already constructed the wooden deck, complete with a set of five wide, shallow stairs separating the lower back half and the higher front half. Byulyi and her older brother, who looked a lot like her, stood on it and jumped up and down to test its sturdiness. A small crowd of juniors gathered and watched. Kyungsoo looked around and saw Sehun, Yongsun, Junmyeon, and Hyejin, just like he expected, but also Wheein, which Jongdae was very excited about, and Kris, Yixing, and Chanyeol. No cheerleaders. 

Byulyi’s older brother tripped and nearly fell on his face as he came down the stairs, but caught himself with embarrassed giggle, and both Baekhyun and Jongin beside him cooed and grabbed Kyungsoo’s arms. 

“Soo, he’s so cute.” 

“Kyungsoo, that’s what I want for Christmas.” 

He stopped at the end of the trailer in front of the group and straightened his shirt. “Okay guys, thank you for coming, my name is Minseok, and this is your Float.” 

There was weak applause. 

“So I guess we still have to to columns and paint and a chariot or something.” 

“We wanted to do a fountain,” Junmyeon interrupted, and Minseok wrinkled his nose. 

“For homecoming? Yeah nothing says battle and victory like a fountain. You could have a giant golden chariot and you want a fountain?” 

Junmyeon frowned as the rest of the crowd snickered behind their hands. 

“You guys also need to figure out how you want to do clouds and how you want to make things school spirit-y.” 

Jongdae leaned into Kyungsoo’s ear. “Why do I feel like this theme was chosen just so Jihyo could dress up like the golden goddess Instagram filter?” 

Jongin snorted. “That’s basically what happened, actually. I think they also wanted an excuse to use Greek letters and act like sorority girls.” 

Byulyi stepped up and took over. “I think we’re going to divide into groups. We need a group of people to work on the chariot, because we’re doing that. Then we need a group working on painting, and group on columns, and a group on decorating.” 

Yongsun raised her hand. Byulyi laughed and pointed at her, “yes, pretty lady in the back?” 

“Jihyo and the other cheerleaders have decided they want to run costumes and makeup instead of float decorating.” 

Hyejin groaned and Yongsun elbowed her in the ribs. 

“Cool, that means I don’t have to worry about it,” Byulyi said, “Please tell her I already have some costume Greek armor left over from an Annabeth Chase cosplay and she doesn’t have to worry about armor for me.” 

Junmyeon cleared his throat. “I don’t think she’s going to want anybody to wear armor…” 

Minseok scoffed. “Does this chick understand the point of homecoming? It’s about a football game. You guys are supposed to look fierce, like you’re going to pulverize the other team. If you went with something as not fun as a Greek Gods theme, please tell me you at least have someone dressed up as Nike. The goddess of victory, not the shoe brand.” 

Awkward silence. “We don’t,” Sehun said, and Junmyeon glared at him. 

“Wheein should do it!” shouted Jongdae, and Wheein looked very pleased. 

“I’ll work it out with Jihyo,” Yongsun promised. “We’ll get you a gold toga.” 

“Anyone who is good at art and painting, split yourselves into the decorating and painting teams. Anyone with building or crafting experience come with me to do the chariot. Everyone else go with Minseok.” 

Baekhyun and Jongdae went with Minseok to do columns and any other construction. Hyejin, Wheein, and Sehun decided to do painting, and Yongsun, Jongin, Junmyeon, and Yixing got to work on decoration. That left Byulyi, Kyungsoo, Kris, and Chanyeol on the Chariot. 

“My dad does carpentry as a hobby, so I know how to build stuff,” said Kris. 

“Cool story bro,” said Kyungsoo. 

“You’re just going to be doing what I tell you to anyway,” said Byulyi. She led them over to a large stack of Chariot pieces and a rough drawing of a chariot. “This thing is going to be really big and people are going to be able to stand in it.” 

Chanyeol whistled. “You and Minseok have been really busy.” 

“Mom is an architect and Dad does construction. We built a lot of treehouses as kids.” 

Things were tense. Kyungsoo wondered if he should just have joined Minseok’s team to avoid working with the two people who he had the most beef with. He half expected Kris to put a nail through his hand. Chanyeol just looked uncomfortable. He glanced over at Minseok’s team to see that Minseok had Jongdae pinned under on of his knees and Baekhyun thrashing over his shoulder, and still wasn’t convinced he shouldn’t have picked the columns group. 

The chariot was basically a three sided box on posts. After Kris turned around and hit Kyungsoo in the back with one of the posts, Byulyi hauled the basketball player off to help her make wheels while Chanyeol and Kyungsoo stayed behind to hammer the walls of the chariot to the floor. They worked in silence, only communicating when they needed too. 

The distinct sound of Baekhyun screaming made them both look up. The column team had miraculously managed to construct a column, and then get Baekhyun stuck on top of it. Minseok and Jongdae stood laughing on either side of it keeping it upright, occasionally taking their hands away and letting it tip just enough to scare the crap out of the boy on top. 

“We’re going to let it tip, Baek. You need to get down.” 

“No don’t do it! It’s too high!” 

“It’s like seven feet, Baekhyun. You’ll be fine.” 

“No! I’m going to die! I hate you both! AHHH!” 

Minseok cackled and shook the column as Baekhyun swore colorfully. 

Jongdae looked over at the chariot, wicked smirk stretched across his face. “Kyungsoo is there anybody tall over there? We have a cat up a tree and we’re too short to help him down.” 

Baekhyun stopped screaming in favor of leaning over the edge of the column to threaten Jongdae under his breath. Jongdae let the column tip in the direction Baekhyun was leaning. More screaming. Jongdae was more evil than Kyungsoo had given him credit for. 

He turned expectantly to Chanyeol, who looked cornered. “Chanyeol, you’re tall, will you help my dumb friend Baekhyun down from the column he got stuck on?” 

“How did he even get up there?” 

“I don’t know, but he’ll die if you don’t save him.” 

“Oh come on, no he won’t.” 

“Look at the poor thing. He’s so scared.” Right on cue, Baekhyun screamed again. 

“Oh for fucks sake.” Chanyeol got up and walked over the the column team. Even from fifty feet away Kyungsoo could see Baekhyun’s cheeks turn red. He looked like he was about to jump off the pillar all on his own just to get away. 

As soon as Chanyeol was close enough, Jongdae and Minseok tipped the column towards Chanyeol, who caught Baekhyun under the arms and lifted him to safety. Despite his protesting, Baekhyun immediately wrapped his arms around his prince charming and pushed his face into Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol kept his arms wrapped around Baekhyun’s waist and his his face buried in his hair for a couple seconds too long before lowering his feet to the ground. 

Jongdae watched from the behind the re-erected column, eyes squished up in delight, Minseok looked very intrigued. Baekhyun let go of Chanyeol and gently removed himself from his arms. They exchanged a few words, probably a thank you, without looking at each other, and then Chanyeol wandered back to Kyungsoo. He cheeks were very pink. Behind him Baekhyun pushed the column down on top of Jongdae. 

Sometime around sunset, after the chariot team had finished fitting the wheels on the chariot and the columns team had constructed a grand total of four basic columns without tops, the group convened for pizza. Hyejin, Wheein, and Sehun were absolutely covered in paint. Yixing was smoking a joint. 

Jongin rested his head on Kyungsoo’s lap when he was done eating. Junmyeon and Kris whispered to each other and stared at them, which was a little disconcerting.

“Soo?”

“Yes?” 

“I meant to ask you this earlier, but do you not like being called Soo?” 

Well, shit. Now was the time to tactfully get him to stop calling him Soo. “Usually when people, even Baekhyun and my mom, call me Soo. Or cute. I usually mind. But I don’t mind when you do it.” 

“Really? Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. At first I was just intimidated because you’re infamous or whatever, but now I honestly don’t mind.” 

Jongin smiled and reached up to give Kyungsoo’s cheek a pet. “You’re a really good friend, Soo. I mean that. You sure you don’t mind me calling you cute? You always look so dead inside when you do.” 

“I think I don’t mind because no matter how cute I am, you will always be cuter. Nini.” 

Jongin giggled and whacked gently at Kyungsoo’s face. “It’s so weird that you call me that. Only my sister calls me that.” 

“Should I stop?” 

“No, I don’t mind either. Nobody else calls you Soo, right? It’s only fair.” 

Beakhyun’s head dropped down onto Kyungsoo’s legs next to Jongin’s. “Hey guys, sorry to spoil the moment. I just got tired of watching Kris Wu trying to catch Kyungsoo’s eye so he could glare threateningly at him.” 

“He can keep trying.” 

“Great Class President Kim Junmyeon also seems overly concerned with you two.” 

Jongin lightly knocked his head into Baekhyun’s. “He’s overly concerned with what everyone does, don’t let it bother you.” 

“Hyejin, Wheein, and Byulyi are definitely talking about you guys.”

That was actually kind of surprising. 

Jongin shrugged. He was probably used to people talking about what he was doing. “Kyungsoo, rub my belly.” 

Kyungsoo snorted. “Are you a dog?” 

“Yes. Please?” 

That really wasn’t something he wanted to do with half the present company already judging them for their current position.

“That’s kind of weird, Jongin.” Baekhyun was a lifesaver.

“No it’s not, it feels good.” 

“Yes it is. That’s not a thing people do with their friends. That’s like. A couples thing.”   
Jongin pouted and got up to lie down on the other side of Kyungsoo’s lap next to Baekhyun. Baekhyun shifted over nervously. “What are you doing?” 

Jongin rubbed Baekhyun’s stomach. Kyungsoo held back a snicker as Baekhyun stiffened up. 

“See, doesn’t it feel good?” 

Baekhyun pursed his lips. “I mean yes, but I’m also kind of uncomfortable, so no?” 

“Does this make you uncomfortable?” Jongin threw his leg over Baekhyun’s hips and snuggled in close, just like Jongin had cuddled with Kyungsoo the first time. Baekhyun squeaked as Jongin’s hand slipped under his shirt to keep rubbing his stomach. Jongin leaned in close to his ear. “You have a cute tummy, Baekhyun.” 

“Holy fuck this is weird.” 

Jongin laughed. “Kyungsoo thought it was weird too, but he got used to it.” He pressed his lips against Baekhyun’s neck. Baekhyun squirmed and made a weird noise. 

Kyungsoo glanced over at Chanyeol. He’d stopped chewing on his fourth slice of pizza and was frowning in their direction. “Baekhyun’s boy toy doesn’t like that.” 

Baekhyun’s eyes flashed. “Good.” He wrapped an arm around Jongin and pulled him closer. Jongin rolled half on top of Baekhyun and kept working on his neck. Kyungsoo wasn’t really sure how he was supposed to feel, except that it was weird that it was happening on his lap. He looked over at Jongdae to get a second opinion, who looked somewhere between alarm and glee, which was pretty much where Kyungsoo was, minus some of the glee. It was amusing. It was also a helpful but tough reminder what a shameless flirt Jongin was. 

Jongin pushed his hand all the way up Baekhyun’s shirt and trailed his lips up Baekhyun’s cheek to hover over his mouth. Baekhyun’s fingers dug into Jongin’s shoulders. He looked like he’d gotten a little more than he bargained for. Kyungsoo glanced over at Chanyeol, who was still frozen with his pizza, looking stricken and betrayed. Kyungsoo grabbed Jongin’s shoulder and pulled him off his poor friend. “That’s enough, guys.” 

Baekhyun pulled his shirt back down and covered his face with his hands. “Oh my god what the fuck just happened.” Jongdae and Minseok cackled at him and threw slices of peperoni onto his head. 

Jongin laughed and settled back down on Kyungsoo’s lap. He seemed very pleased with himself. Chanyeol said something quickly to Yongsun and then walked away towards the cars.

The party broke up after pizza, with plans to come and work on the float whenever they had free time over the next week and a half until the parade. Jongin drove Baekhyun and Jongdae to Baekhyun’s house with continuous flirting. Baekhyun half flirted back and blushed and covered his face the rest of the time. Then he drove Kyungsoo home. They chatted about costume plans. “Dahyun and Jeongyeon are going to do everyone’s makeup. I’m excited about it, because they do a beauty blog together. They’ve done my makeup on it a few times. It was really fun.” 

Kyungsoo frowned. “We’re going to have to wear makeup?” This was just getting worse and worse. 

“Yeah! They’re good at guys’ makeup though. It’s barely noticeable. They’ll probably get a little fancy, but it’s just stage makeup. I promise it won’t look ridiculous or anything.” 

Kyungsoo was dubious. 

“Our project is due next Wednesday, right?” 

“Yup. A week from tomorrow. I’m glad we’ve read the whole thing.” 

“I’m not worried. We should be able to get it done this Saturday.” 

“Do you want to stay for dinner again?” 

“Yeah, that would be awesome.” He reached over and pet Kyungsoo’s head. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” 

“See you then.” Kyungsoo waved him away with a smile, but he felt off. Seeing him cuddling with Baekhyun had been weird. He hoped at least it helped convince Chanyeol what he wanted. 

 

Jongin slept all the way through class the next morning. Kyungsoo wondered who had spent the night with. He still looked precious when he slept, face relaxed, lips parted, cheek squished against his arm. His hair drifted in wisps over his forehead. Kyungsoo’s chest hurt a little. It hurt a little for Kris too, who sat at the front of the classroom with his arms crossed, staring at the floor. It must hurt to have had all of Jongin’s sweet, loving perfection in his arms whenever he wanted, and to then have Jongin push him away just because he’d held on too tightly. Throw in a bit of sexuality crisis, and Kyungsoo really had to feel bad for him. 

He didn’t have the heart to wake him for group work. He texted Baekhyun instead, about how Jongin was cute when he slept. Apparently Baekhyun though Chanyeol was cute when he slept too. He got a detailed description, and then a picture of sleeping Chanyeol that Baekhyun just happened to have. Kyungsoo thought about sending a detailed response, but instead just sent a picture of a teddy bear. Baekhyun sent back a lot of crying emojies, which probably meant he thought it was adorable. He woke Jongin up at the end of class, and the boy blinked up at him with bleary eyes and glistening lips. He had a wet spot on his sleeve. Kyungsoo resisted the urge to wipe the spit off his chin with his thumb. 

“Wake up, little bear.” 

“Oh my god.” He reached out blindly and pushed his hand into Kyungsoo’s face, knocking his glasses out of place. His hand smelled like good cologne. “Why did you let me sleep through group time?” 

“Most of the groups haven’t even started reading their books yet. I figured we could afford to let you sleep a little longer.” 

“Thanks, Soo.” He grabbed Kyungsoo’s arm and used his sweater to wipe the wetness off his face. 

“Dammit Jongin, why.” 

“I love it when you wear sweaters.” 

“I know. I’m never wearing sweaters again if you’re just going to wipe your spit all over them.” 

Jongin just giggled and buried his face in his arms. Kyungsoo could only see the happy crescents of his eyes. His chest hurt again. 

On the way out of class he wrapped himself around Kyungsoo like he’d wrapped himself around Kris way back when Jongin and Kyungsoo were practically strangers. Kris watched them go. Jongin didn’t notice. 

 

Jongdae was noticeably anxious as they sat down to lunch. His worried eyebrows took up an extended stay on his face on his forehead, and he kept rocking back and forth. He didn’t steal a single fry from Kyungsoo’s plate. Baekhyun looked in abnormally high spirits. 

“Somebody is about to ask a certain soprano to homecoming.” 

“Is he going to unleash his high notes in a romantic aria in the middle of the lunch room?” 

Jongdae’s worried eyebrows got even more worried. “God, no. That sounds really embarrassing for everyone involved. I spent a couple hours last night on this.” He held out a black foam mustache that had the words ‘homecoming dance?’ Glued to the front in white paper, cut to the contours of the mustache. The letters were outlined in silver glitter. 

Jongin clapped and laughed. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Your craft is really good.” 

“It’s easily readable right? I’m just going to look twice as stupid if she says no.” 

“She’s not going to say no. Trust me on this. And yes, it’s very readable.” 

Over at the soprano’s usual table, Wheein sat down with her friends.

“Oh god, I’m going to have to do this in front of all her friends. I’m so scared I think I’m going to throw up.” 

Kyungsoo came around the table to give him a shoulder massage for encouragement. “You can do this, Jongdae. You’re going to be smooth as fuck and all the sopranos are going to squeal really high. It’ll be cute.” 

“Since when could you give shoulder massages?” Kyungsoo remembered sheepishly that Jongdae had been on the receiving end of his disappointing shoulder massages in choir several times.” 

“Um. Jongin forced me to learn.” 

Jongin looked very proud. 

“Well, thanks. Feels good. I’m going to go do it now.” 

“Best of luck.” 

Jongdae gave them one last nervous smile and weaved through tables towards the sopranos. 

“He really looks like a cat, doesn’t he?” Jongin made the same observation that many choir members had made before him. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo nodded in agreement. 

“I hope Wheein is a cat person.” 

“She is,” Jongin responded. “She posts pictures of her cats on Instagram all the time.” 

“She’s about to get another cat.” Baekhyun nodded at where Jongdae had pulled up a chair next to a very pleased Wheein. He was facing away from the boys’ table, but they could see him peel the wax paper off the back of the mustache under the table as he chatted with her. Then he lifted his hands to his face and put it on and probably wiggled his eyebrows or something. 

There was lots of squealing. Wheein clapped and nodded, and Jongdae collapsed onto the table with relief. She pet his hair. Jongin squealed a little too. 

“Jongin, who are you taking to the dance?” Baekhyun asked the question Kyungsoo didn’t really want to know the answer to. Jongin shrugged. 

“I usually go with whatever cheerleader is between boys.” 

“Between boys?” Baekhyun snorted. 

“Most of them prefer that to being called single.” 

“So are you between boys all the time then?” 

Jongin winked at him flirtatiously. “I’m always between a few boys. Why? You need a date?” 

“Kyungsoo and I never go.”

“…Oh.” Jongin looked a little too surprised, which was cute, as if he never expected someone to optionally skip the homecoming dance. “But its fun! Its like, a necessary high school experience. Especially now that we’re upperclassmen.” 

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows. “So you’re saying it’s, like, a rite of passage or something? Everybody has to pay their dues spending too much money on tickets and a suit and stressing over a dance for a bit, and then being miserable for a night at the school dance? That kind of necessary high school experience?” 

Jongin pouted. “It’s not miserable. It’s always really fun.” 

“Some of us don’t have a date every year and a before and after party and tons of good friends to dance with. Some of us feel too uncomfortable with ourselves and the way people laugh at us behind our backs to even try to dance.” 

Jongin didn’t have a response for that. He looked at Kyungsoo for help. Kyungsoo opened his mouth to make Baekhyun shut up, but got cut off. 

“Sorry, Jongin. I’m sure you have fun. But you gotta realize that things like homecoming and prom are kind of lost on people who the rest of the class kind of hopes won’t show up anyway. We make it less cool or something.” Jongin looked very wide eyed and nervous, like he was worried he’d accidentally hurt Baekhyun’s feelings. Kyungsoo rubbed a hand over his shoulders to try to tell him it was fine. Baekhyun ground the palms of his hands into his eyes and continued. “Plus, last year I helped Chanyeol set up his promposal and then he never tried to get me to come or get me a date or anything. Not that I wanted to watch him grind on some girl I knew he would go make out with later while I sat alone at some table and wished I was her.” 

Kyungsoo leaned into Jongin’s ear and whispered, “this isn’t about you, don’t worry. You’ve unlocked the biannual school dance angst. It was bound to start sometime.” 

“I hope he finds some really cute cheerleader to take to homecoming. I hope he takes her home and fucks her, and I hope he imagines it’s me the whole time.” 

Jongin’s expression had gone from guilty to a little frightened. Kyungsoo kicked Baekhyun under the table and got glared at. “We can have a full emotional breakdown after school, but we’re in the lunch room right now, and Jongdae is about to come back here and we have to be happy for him. Plus, you have to at least look happier than Chanyeol.” 

They all glanced over at Chanyeol’s table. He was absent. 

Baekhyun sneered. “That’s a pretty low bar.” 

Jongin muffled a snicker behind his hand and apologized, but there was just the edge of a smile appearing on Baekhyun’s lips too. Nothing cheered him up faster than people laughing at his jokes. 

 

On Saturday Jongin appeared at the door with Panera again. “So we have to do a PowerPoint, right?” 

“Yeah. And we have to write a five-page paper, so we could write the outline for that today.” 

Panera was pretty good again. Jongin curled into his side as they looked though all their bulleted chapters, pulling out major themes and analyses. The PowerPoint went together pretty seamlessly. Jongin only fell asleep once. The outline was a bit of a headache, because Jongin’s paper-writing skills were a bit weak. Kyungsoo spent a lot of time explaining to him why and how to avoid the five paragraph essay format, and what passive voice was, and how to form and support a thesis. Jongin fell asleep three times. After the third time, Kyungsoo let himself wonder again who Jongin had spent the night with. He saved their work, took off his glasses, and put the computer aside. 

Jongin had his forehead pressed into Kyungsoo’s neck, one arm resting on his chest with his hand curled up close to his sleeping face. Kyungsoo resigned himself to another lifeless arm. He wrapped the arm around Jongin and pulled the other boy further on top of him, hoping it would relieve some of the pressure. Jongin hummed a little and shifted around helpfully until he was lying half on top of Kyungsoo on his stomach. It was a little better. His arm was now just under Jongin’s neck instead. He might end up with feeling in his arms, and he could wrap them both around Jongin if he wanted to. Kyungsoo knew he would wake up uncomfortable and sweating again, but it was worth it to have Jongin snuggled up with him, with his firm, warm body pressed up against every inch of Kyungsoo’s. His chest hurt again. He pressed his cheek to Jongin’s hair and sighed. 

 

“Boys?” She sounded more and more amused, every time. Kyungsoo blinked his eyes open. He had a mouthful of Jongin’s hair. He carefully lifted his face away from the damp blond mess. 

“Hi mom.” 

“You two…” She shook her head as Jongin burrowed deeper into Kyungsoo’s arms. He might have been half hard again. It was hard to tell. “What are we having for dinner?” 

“Did I see salmon in the fridge earlier?” 

“Yes, we have salmon. Do you like salmon, Jongin?” 

“Yeeeh…” 

“Okay then, that’s what we’ll do.” She raised her eyebrows at Kyungsoo, who still wasn’t much more awake than Jongin was. 

“Be there in a minute.” 

“Alright.” She slunk away. Kyungsoo closed his eyes for another second or two. This was their last Saturday before the project was due. He hoped Jongin would still want to spend Saturdays with him when he wasn’t obligated anymore. After the project and the parade were over, there wasn’t much tying them together.

“Wake up, little bear.” 

“Sooo….” 

Kyungsoo wrapped both arms around him again and rolled. Jongin yelped. Kyungsoo flopped down on top of him. 

“Awake yet?” 

“A little.” Kyungsoo wiggled aggressively. Jongin giggled and hugged him tightly to try to hold him still. 

“We need to get up, Nini.”

More cute giggling somewhere close to Kyungsoo’s collarbones. “Come on, I have to make you dinner.” 

Jongin nipped his throat with his teeth, which was cute but also kind of hot, and Kyungsoo pulled back as much as he could and looked down at Jongin’s mischievous little smile. 

“Ouch.” 

“I want to keep cuddling.” 

“Why would I cuddle someone who bites me.” 

And there was that pout again. “Please?” 

“Mom need my help.” 

Jongin groaned and buried his face in Kyungsoo’s chest. “Why do you guilt me like this?” 

Kyungsoo laughed and relaxed back down into Jongin’s arms. He almost felt bigger than Jongin like this. It was nice. 

He was startled by a smug voice from the doorway. “I need someone to cut potatoes.” 

“Uh. Yup. On my way. Jongin won’t let me go.” 

Jongin yelped in indignation and jabbed Kyungsoo in the ribs. Kyungsoo rolled off him and wacked him with a pillow. Kyungsoo’s mom laughed and disappeared from the door. 

Jongin wandered sleepily to the bathroom while Kyungsoo went to peak half way around the doorframe at his mom. She stared right back. 

“You two are cute. Your dad and I used to fall asleep like that back before we had a kid.” 

“Did dad’s arm fall asleep?” 

“His didn’t but mine did. He’s heavier than he looks.” 

Kyungsoo snickered. “Typical Professor Do.” 

Jongin came back in looking much more awake than before. He watched as Kyungsoo and Mrs. Do cooked, full of questions and compliments. Kyungsoo could tell she was planning all the ways she was going to pamper him when he was her son-in-law. He got very close to chopping his thumb off while he was glaring at her. 

Prof. Do rushed in once again as dinner was being served and had to be reintroduced to Jongin. He called him Baekhyun at least once again. Dinner was delicious. Jongin helped with dishes again. Kyungsoo watched muscles and tendons move under his beautiful skin as he worked. 

When the last dish was washed, Kyungsoo’s parents wandered to the living room to watch a movie, and Jongin turned to Kyungsoo as he dried his hands. “It’s only eight and there’s no party tonight. We could easily finish the outline.” 

Kyungsoo nodded. “It’s more than half way done.” He dragged himself up off his kitchen stool and back towards his bedroom. Jongin followed and sat down next to him on the bed while Kyungsoo opened his computer back up. 

“Hey Soo?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I was thinking about something.” Kyungsoo turned to find Jongin looking shyly up through his lashes. 

“Yeah?” 

“I know you said you don’t usually go to dances, and none of the cheerleaders have asked me yet. And I did go with Sehun one year. Granted we did fuck after, and I realize my relationship with him is different than my relationship with you.” 

Kyungsoo was pretty sure he knew where this was going. 

“Anyway would you want to go to the homecoming dance as my date? Like, as friends. I just want to show you it can be fun. We had fun at Jihyo’s party.” 

Kyungsoo wondered why he was so anxious to assure Kyungsoo it was a just friends thing. Because obviously. Maybe Jongin was worried Kyungsoo would become another Kris. He wondered how many Krises Jongin had had to deal with. He might be pretty paranoid about people getting feelings at this point. He felt a little guilty. 

“That’s really sweet, Jongin. I’d love to, I’m just worried about Baekhyun. He’s not going to want to come if he can’t go with Chanyeol, and usually the two of us stay at each other’s houses and watch movies and shit on school dance nights. Ever since he got his thing for Chanyeol we’ve made a point of doing something fun when we skip dances. I think he’d be really sad if I ditched him.” 

Jongin looked disappointed. Kyungsoo felt guiltier. “Maybe we could convince him to come? I think he’d hate being there though.” 

He looked down and pulled at the hem of his jeans. “No, it’s fine. I don’t want him to be unhappy, and it’s really nice how you guys are there for each other all the time. I wish I had a friend I was as close with as you guys are with other.” 

“Jongin, I really wish I could go with you. I’d just feel really bad about leaving Baekhyun. I’m sorry. Are you going to have someone else to go with?” 

“Well yeah. Out of the dozens of girls I’m friends with there has to be one that doesn’t have a date yet. Maybe I’ll go with Sehun again. I could even go alone. No one’s going to care. Though everyone is still kind of annoyed with me right now. Junmyeon pulled me aside yesterday to talk about my ‘weird behavior.’”

“Ack.” 

“Everyone used to just go along with whatever I did, but now I’m getting weird looks all the time.” 

“Then maybe going with me isn’t what you want to do anyway. It won’t help anything, since that’s what your ‘weird behavior’ is. Spending time with me.” 

“Chanyeol never gets this treatment when he spends time with Baekhyun.” He had his knees pulled up to his chest. Kyungsoo didn’t know how to deal with his own emotions, much less other people’s.

“Baekhyun is cooler than me. He straddles a weird social limbo where he’s cool enough to hang with the cool kids but would usually rather spend time with me anyway.” 

Jongin kept picking at his jeans. 

“Cheer up, Nini. You’re going to have a great time at the homecoming dance, with or without me. Your friends will get over themselves eventually. I bet they’d fall apart without you.” 

Jongin smiled a little. “It’s not going to be as fun without you though.” 

“We still have the homecoming game after party. It’ll be fine.” 

“Will you be my date to that?” He looked up, finally. 

“Do you even take dates to those things?” 

“I guess not.” He looked back down at his jeans. 

“I’ll be your date to the homecoming after party. And if Chanyeol and Baekhyun get together before the homecoming dance, I’ll go to that too, even if you already have another date.” 

Jongin smiled and leaned into him. “Thanks, Soo. You’re amazing. Sorry for getting all sad on you. This stupid thing with my friends has been kind of rough on me.” 

“You can get sad on my anytime you need to. I’m not great at being emotional support but I’ll do my best.” 

“Thanks, Soo.” 

Things devolved into cuddling again. They somehow managed to finish the outline and agreed to each write half the paper and proofread and edit the other person’s half. Jongin promised to write his half the next day so Kyungsoo could edit and write his half on Monday, and Tuesday afternoon they would get together after school and practice and finish up. 

“Don’t forget that about spirit week.” 

“Oh god.” 

“Monday is nerd day. Can I borrow a sweater?” 

This was exactly why Kyungsoo hated nerd day. “Are you just going to dress like me?” 

“No! I’m going to wear a sweater with glasses, suspenders, and khakis. You don’t wear suspenders or khakis.” 

Ooh. Jongin in glasses.

“I’m just going to wear my normal clothes.” 

Jongin whined and squirmed around. “You’re no fun, Soo.”

“I’ll pick out a sweater for you and bring it to you tomorrow, and you can pick out one of your sweaters for me, how does that sound, Nini?” 

Jongin giggled and curled into Kyungsoo’s chest. “That sounds great.”


	6. Chapter 6

Freshman year had been a very unfortunate time for Kyungsoo. Sad reminders of the awful year remained at the very bottom on his pants drawer in the form of his least offensive pair of khaki pants. The others had been thrown out. Stuffed into the back corner of his shirt drawer was an old short sleeved white collared shirt, badly wrinkled. It made Kyungsoo look like a grocery store manager. He pulled one of his larger knit sweaters on over it, brown and green and covered in tacky knitted patterns. October chill was setting in, and hopefully he would be able to wear a sweater all day, save for the minute it would take to switch sweaters with Jongin during first period.

He caught a ride to school with his dad, who of course didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Kyungsoo noticed that they were dressed almost exactly alike, except that his dad’s shirt had sleeves. It didn’t make him feel any better. Jongin in glasses. Jongin in glasses. He could get through this. 

Jongin looked fucking adorable in glasses. He had his blond hair artfully slicked back, and a pair of thin rimmed, round glasses on his face. Khaki shorts, tucked in white t-shirt, black suspenders. He was sitting on a desk up at the front of the classroom with his friends. The girls all had pigtails. Kris looked sulky in his 3D glasses frames with the plastic lenses popped out and an old tweet jacket. He looked up and saw Kyungsoo come in. 

“Oh look, Kyungsoo didn’t dress up.” 

Jongin spun around towards Kyungsoo and laughed as Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. “Let’s count and see how many times I hear that joke today.” 

“You look adorable.” 

“Don’t you dare call me adorable while you’re wearing those glasses. If I wasn’t dead inside right now I’d be reaching new levels of undignified squeaking. Did you bring a sweater?” 

Jongin pulled a soft, grapefruit pink sweater out of his backpack, and Kyungsoo propped his elbows on Jongin’s desk and buried his face in his hands. There was just no escape from the cute dad look. Fucking pink? Jongin cackled and jostled Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“Come on, Soo. This was your idea.” 

“I should have picked one of my tiny ones I don’t fit into anymore.” He reluctantly pulled off his sweater and put on the pink one. It was a little too big and fell down just past his wrists. Jongin cooed and ruffled his hair. Kyungsoo wanted to go home. 

“You look so adorable.” 

“I want to go home.” He wandered back to his desk, and Jongin followed him, giggling. He looked way better in Kyungsoo’s sweater than Kyungsoo did. It was infuriating. But he also looked cute as hell in glasses. 

It was actually kind of fun to walk through the hallways and see what everyone had come up with. Jongin spent a lot more time than usual with his arms wrapped around Kyungsoo, hands rubbing over the soft sweater. Maybe spirit week wasn’t so bad. Kyungsoo and Baekhyun usually ignored spirit week, but even Baekhyun had dressed up in plaid shorts and suspenders with a white polo and thick rimmed glassless frames. Jongdae was wearing the exact same thing. So was Wheein. They were cute.

 

Tuesday was Hawaiian day. The cheerleaders looked barely school appropriate in their beach sarongs and flip flops. All the boys looked like douchey beach bros. Jongin showed up in very short swim trunks and a bright loose tank top. His hair looked miraculously wind blown and briny, with gentle waves. Kyungsoo resisted the urge to touch it as he sat down next to him at lunch after after a good ten minutes of taking pictures with everyone at the cool kids table. Kyungsoo had a hard time tearing his eyes away from long, sun-kissed arms and legs. He looked so soft with tousled hair, and Kyungsoo wanted to lie with him in the sun and run his hands through it. 

Kyungsoo just wore a Hawaiian shirt under his sweater. It was way too cold for beachwear. Baekhyun and Jongdae dressed up like palm trees, all tan outfits with coconuts and palm fronds made out of construction paper attached to cheep chef’s hats. Apparently Jongdae was good at arts and crafts. Wheein had one too. They looked stupid. 

“Is this what you guys worked on instead of The Float last night?” 

“Yup. Minseok is pissed.” 

He almost forgot Jongin was coming home with him to work on the project. Instead of asking to borrow another sweater, he burrowed under Kyungsoo’s blankets as they rehearsed the presentation. Kyungsoo missed all his bare skin. 

“Soo, I’m still cold. Come cuddle.” 

Kyungsoo threw one leg over Jongin’s body. Jongin whined. “After all I’ve taught you this is what you give me? Get under the blankets and cuddle.” 

Kyungsoo got under the blankets and let Jongin wrap his arms around his waist while he continued to type. Jongin fell asleep. Kyungsoo took a few moments to stare down at his tan, muscled arms and his soft lips and sharp jawline. He reached down to pet his wavy beach hair and found it a little courser than usual, but it was still cute. He sighed and got back to work. 

 

Kyungsoo and Jongin did their full presentation in somber black clothing, preaching Gatsby to a class of witches, goths, and funeral goers. It was Adams Family day. Jongin had never looked better in his all black suit, shirt and tie included, with just enough makeup on to make him look just a little scarier. Sharper features, darker skin around his eyes. He was breathtaking. Gatsby had never been so sultry and intimidating. The class had never looked so emo. Kyungsoo had to stop the presentation of laugh only once and counted it a win. 

Baekhyun had an absurd amount of eyeliner on. He looked hot though. 

“Chanyeol wouldn’t stop looking at me in class today.” 

“You should wear eyeliner more often.” Jongin leaned in closer and fluttered his eyelashes at Baekhyun, who blushed a little. 

Jongdae wasn’t sitting with them. He was being the dutiful Gomez to Wheein’s Morticia over at the soprano table. The boys were all very proud. 

 

After school Kyungsoo caught a ride with Wheein and Jongdae to Byulyi’s house to continue to work on The Float. Hyejin and Byulyi were already hard at work. The Float was nearly done. The chariot was proudly painted in school colors, gold and blue, and was placed so it looked like it was just rolling up the top few stairs. The top left corner had seven or eight columns set down in rows decreasing in number from the edge, and the bottom right corner also had a few. The whole thing was painted to look like marble. Now it was just a matter of attaching clouds and vines. 

Hyejin looked like Rosy the Riveter with a bandana tied around her head like a headband. She and Byulyi sat on the end of the chariot, surrounded by a growing pile of balloons. 

“Good, more singers. Most of today we’re going to be blowing up white balloons to make clouds, so put those breathing excersises to good use. The balloons might get covered in gauze or something if Princess Jihyo wants them to look more realistic, but the main body of the clouds are going to be balloons regardless.”

Kyungsoo sat down next to a giant pile of unblown white balloons and got to work. The sun was warm on the back of his neck. Black clothes were a mistake. 

“Is anyone else coming?” Jongdae and Wheein didn’t stop holding hands as they sat down and started blowing up balloons. Kyungsoo couldn’t wait to see them try to tie a balloon with only one hand. 

“I don’t think so. Just us five. So you guys going to the homecoming dance?” Byulyi asked. “Besides Wheein and Jongdae I mean.” 

Hyejin and Kyungsoo both shook their heads. 

“I’ll go to prom, but I hate football.” Hyejin in a gown might just be a good reason to go to prom. 

Byulyi turned expectantly to Kyungsoo.

“I never go to dances. Baekhyun and I hang out and feel sorry for ourselves instead.” 

Hyejin nodded appreciatively. 

“Can I come?” 

Kyungsoo laughed. “Yeah, come join our pity party. Beakhyun might just die if you show up in his room.” 

“I’ll take him down with these hips. Mm.” She wiggled around a little and looked deadly, and Wheein covered Jongdae’s eyes. 

“He is a butt guy.” 

“He’s gay though, right? We all saw him with Jongin the other day.” 

“Yeah he’s gay. You’d be safe.” 

She waved a hand at him. “I know I’m safe, I like you guys. I wouldn’t be worried even if he was straight. He should be more worried about me.” She winked. Kyungsoo felt as straight as he had ever felt in his life. 

“Byulyi, are you going?” 

“Yeah, somebody has to chaperone Wheein and Yongsun.” 

Wheein snorted. “You act like we’re not going to end up chaperoning you, miss cleverly hidden flask.” 

“What can I say, I just love dancing.” 

“You make a strong case.” 

Work returned to silence for a bit, until Hyejin spoke up again. “Kyungsoo, what’s up with you and Jongin?” 

Kyungsoo let his balloon deflate. The air flatulated sadly out of the end with a gross wheeze. “Nothing. We’re friends.” 

There was an awkward silence. Byulyi hummed dubiously. 

“I don’t like that.” Hyejin blew up a balloon with impressive speed and tied it off with a flourish of red nails. 

“Don’t like… us being friends?” 

“No, you guys being friends is cute, but we all know how Jongin works. The whole school knows. The kid flirts and fucks basically everyone above a certain level of popular and attractive. Like, he’s gay and both Byulyi and I have fucked him.” 

“Really? Wow.” 

“Jealous?” She raised a single eyebrow and smirked. 

“Yes. But I’m not sure who of.” 

“You’re very sweet. But that’s not my point.” Another balloon went up with impressive speed. “Do you know how many hearts he’s broken? The kid is too friendly and likeable for his own good. He makes everyone feel special and perfect. Even though everyone knows how fast he moves on.” 

“Yeah, I know.” 

“Have you fucked him?” 

“No.” 

“His friends are already freaking out because he hangs out with you, but he cuddles and snuggles and spends tons of time with you anyway. He’s leading you on. And I like you, so it’s pissing me off.” 

Kyungsoo frowned at his balloon.

“Like when I make a guy friend I don’t want to hook up with, I make an effort to maintain a certain level of distance and professionalism, because I’m not dumb, I know I’m hot, and I don’t want to end up sending the wrong messages and hurting him.”

Jongdae’s worried eyebrows were getting extreme. “But Jongin really seems closer with Kyungsoo than all those other people. Maybe it’s different this time?” 

Hyejin nodded. “It is different, because they’re clearly friends, but I’m just saying it’s not fair that Jongin gets a close and cuddly with him if he’s clearly not in it for a relationship. You don’t treat someone like your boyfriend if you don’t want them to be your boyfriend. Girl rules 101. Or at least that should be girl rules 101, instead of ‘wear a shorter skirt to attract males’ and ‘you’re not good at math, stop trying.’”

“I’m not good at math but it’s not because I’m a girl.” Byulyi tucked a balloon into her ponytail. “It’s because the public school system fucked me over.” 

Kyungsoo sighed and blew up another balloon. “I mean, you’re right, Hyejin, and the way he’s kind of leading me on has been bothering me too, but you’re missing an important detail here.”

“What’s that.” 

“He thinks I’m straight. I’ve told exactly three people in my life that I’m gay. Well, six now, counting you three girls. And it’s not that I hide it, it’s just that I don’t talk about it. Anyway, my sexuality has never entered the conversation with us. He’s used to straight boys falling for him left in right because in our school for some reason we’ve decided as a group that he’s an exception, but I don’t flirt or make moves, I’m immune to his pout, and I don’t get hard when we cuddle. I don’t buy into the stupid rules our school makes up, like making sexuality exceptions for certain people, and he knows that. He probably thinks I’m the one straight boy he doesn’t have to worry will catch feelings.” 

Hyejin nodded slowly and blew up another balloon. “But you did catch feelings?” 

Kyungsoo sighed. “Of course I did. He’s sweet and smart and when he’s not sexy as all hell he’s the cutest thing on the planet. He always sees the best in people, even in people like Kris and Jihyo, or in people like Baekhyun and me. He’s always trying to make everyone around him happy.” Kyungsoo yanked fretfully at rubber in his hands. “And sometimes he’s manipulative and sulky, and he’s caught up in the glamour of being practically worshiped by the whole class, and he’s careless with people’s feelings sometimes, but it’s not like he ever gives less than he promises. He’s perfect. And he’s so out of my league. I’m still shocked he spends time with me at all.” 

All balloon making had ceased. Kyungsoo took a deep breath and stared out across Byulyi’s yard. “Sorry guys, I got a bit carried away there.” 

Byulyi made a sad face. “I feel like there’s a whole wonderful side of Jongin that I’ve never seen. I always assumed he was just really good at talking to people. You make it sound like he’s a legitimately good person.” 

“He’s the one that got Wheein and Jongdae together.” 

Wheein blinked. “What?” 

Jongdae’s eyes got wider. “Oh fuck, he is, isn’t he?” 

Wheein gave him a dangerous, ‘we’re talking about this later’ look.

Hyejin clicked her tongue and grabbed another handful of balloons. “Well now I feel bad for thinking he was a dick.” 

Kyungsoo sighed. “Nope, not a dick. But he is a little out of touch with reality sometimes. I think a lot of how he treats people is based the fact that he’s been treated like a sex god for all of high school. He’s bound to get some weird ideas about dating and hookups when even the straight boys want to hook up with him. I think he feels like as long as it’s clear what he’s advertising, it’s the responsibility of his hookups not to expect anything more and to not get hurt when he doesn’t return feelings they shouldn’t have gotten. Of course it doesn’t really work that way, people catch feelings whether or not they know they’ll be returned, but he’s only seventeen, you can’t expect him to have this shit figured out yet.” 

Byulyi nodded. “All very good points, Kyungsoo. That really sucks though. What are you going to do?” 

“I’m going to enjoy his company while it lasts, maybe I’ll come out of the closet and see how he responds to that information. Then I’m going to go to a different college, get some distance, and move on.” 

Everyone made sad faces. Kyungsoo focused on the balloon and tried hard not to think about it. Balloon efforts continued in somber silence until Wheein accidentally let one go and it flew directly into Byulyi’s face.

 

On Thursday Kyungsoo sat down to lunch across from the most serious looking Peter Pan he had ever seen. Westley and Buttercup from The Princess Bride sat next to him, Westley’s worried eyebrows visible even through his mask. Kyungsoo was wearing a red striped shirt and jeans. He was Waldo. 

“Found you,” said male Elsa from frozen as he sat down next to Kyungsoo with a breathtaking smirk. “Everybody having a good character day? What’s up with you, Baekhyun?” 

“Chanyeol called me last night.” 

Table-wide gasp. 

“What did he say?” 

“I picked up the phone despite my better judgment, and he was wasted. He said he missed me and he wanted to hold me again, but he also said he didn’t want to feel this way and seeing me with Jongin last week made him really mad. I asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted to go back to how things were. I told him I either wanted to be with him or leave him behind. He said I looked good in eyeliner.” 

Baekhyun took a deep breath and stole one of Kyungsoo’s fries. No one wearing green tights should look that sad. “I asked him if he had feelings for me. He said he missed having me as a friend, and he wanted to fuck me.” 

“So that’s a yes?” Jongin sounded hopeful.

“Is that a yes?” 

“That sounds like a yes. Good friends with mutual sexual desire sounds like grounds for feelings to me.” 

Baekhyun looked over at Chanyeol’s table. Chanyeol was sitting quietly at the end of his usual table dressed as Han Solo. When Baekhyun looked over he looked quickly back at his food, cheeks coloring. 

“I think it’s a good sign. He’s cracking.” 

Baekhyun smiled weakly. “Maybe he is. I’m going to keep ignoring him until he can face me sober.” 

Kyungsoo nodded. “Sounds like a good plan.” 

 

Friday was inevitably school spirit day. Everyone came dressed in royal blue and gold, or yellow if they didn’t have gold, and the teacher tried in vain to get everyone to focus. Even Kyungsoo felt the crackle of excitement. Football players roamed the hallways in their jerseys, red faced and grunting, and the cheerleaders marched along in uniform, looking even more self-important than usual.

Jongin was wearing his dance team tank top and looking very excited. He grabbed Kyungsoo’s hand before he went into his last class and hauled him away. 

“Jongin, I have class.” 

“It’s homecoming, who cares. You have to get in costume!” 

“The parade isn’t for, like, four hours.” 

“So? There’s a lot of people who need makeup! I want to be at the front of the line!” 

Dahyun and Jungyeon were already set up in the dance studio complete with desk lamps and tables and tons and tons of makeup. Off to the other side, Jihyo and Momo stood with several racks of togas. 

“Wardrobe first,” Dahyun said, and pointed over to the togas. 

Jihyo handed Kyungsoo his outfit without looking at him, but Momo was nice enough to tell him what he was supposed to do with it. There was a long loose white dress thing that he got to wear as a base, synched at the waist, and then a large rectangular cloth with blue and gold boarders that he wrapped over that and secured with a pin, and then he got to throw the extra over his shoulder and feel very important. It actually looked pretty authentic, if fancy statues and tacky old movies were anything to go by. He got some sandals too. They actually kind of fit. 

“Wow, Momo, this is a really legit costume.” 

“Junmyeon let us spend class money and we did our research. A lot of this stuff is just bed sheets though. We just sewed stuff on them and made them fancy.” 

Junmyeon was a really shitty class president. “Cool.” 

Jongin appeared with Jihyo out of a changing room. His toga was decidedly less authentic. He didn’t get the dress thing underneath. Instead he got a white skirt with a Greek soldier armor costume skirt that had been painted blue and gold over it. The kind with lots of vertical strips that made him look like the cast of Troy. Then he got a much shorter toga thing to throw over his shoulder. Kyungsoo could see a good half of his chest and a lot of leg.   
“Wow, mine is a lot sexier than yours.” 

Kyungsoo swallowed the lump in his throat. “Better you than me. I guess you’re a soldier and I’m still a drunk.” 

Jongin laughed and led him over to the makeup station. 

“Make us beautiful, girls!” 

Jungyeon took Jongin to one side of the giant mirror, and Dahyun took Kyungsoo to the other where there were a couple chairs and a table with a couple bright desk lamps and tons of makeup on it. Dahyun looked friendly and sweet. Kyungsoo was relieved.

“Wow, you have really nice lips. And nice skin. I’m excited. I promise this won’t take too long. There’s not much to do.” 

“I don’t know anything about makeup, so this is very scary.” 

“I promise it won’t hurt.” 

She took off his glasses and swabbed off his face with something that smelled weird, and then massaged in something else that smelled weird. 

“That was just sunscreen.” 

“It was?” 

“Mhm.” 

She rubbed in a third thing that smelled weird, and then finally reached for a tube of something that actually looked like makeup. Kyungsoo closed his eyes and let her work, turning his face this way and that as she asked as a brush danced gently over his cheeks. 

“I’m going to do your eyes now.” 

“Okay.” 

She brushed at his eyelids for a minute or two. “Open your eyes please?” 

He did. 

“Look up?” 

She started brushing under his eyes. It was kind of scary. 

“You’re very close to Jongin, right?” 

“I guess.” 

“How long have you guys been friends?” 

“A little over a month now?” 

“Ah. That’s what I thought.” There was a moment of silence as she dug around on the makeup on the table and came up with a brown pencil. “Just a little eyeliner, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

That was the scariest part so far. “He got really close to you really fast. It’s weird to see him so attached to you. It’s sweet though.” 

“…huh.” He really didn’t need anyone else to tell him it was weird that Jongin spent time with him.

“We kind of miss him, actually. He spends so much time with you now…” 

“I’m sorry, should I tell him to go away?” 

She laughed. “No, no. You should come hang out with us, too. Then maybe we’d see more of him.”

“Oh. Thank you.” 

“He never actually spends this much time with any one person.” 

“…huh.” 

“Sorry, I should be talking to you about you and not throwing out weird facts about Jongin. Time for Mascara. This will be the worst part.” 

“Okay.” 

It was the worst part. But after that she chatted about how excited she was to do all the gods’ and goddesses’ makeup, and her plans for each while she did his eyebrows and cheeks, and then his lips. Kyungsoo felt like he must look like a drunk doll. 

“Look in the mirror.” 

He turned in his seat nervously. He looked like a familiar blur that was slightly more fabulous than usual. He could tell he looked different, but he knew he wasn’t getting the full effect. He reached for his glasses. 

“Oh, wait, wait.” She grabbed a fancy camera behind one of the lamps and snapped a picture before he put his glasses on. “Okay, now look.” 

He put his glasses on and looked at the picture displayed on the back of the camera. “Oh, woah. That’s really cool actually.” His eyes looked more pronounced somehow, but he couldn’t really tell how, and his cheeks had a nice blush on them that matched the deep pink yet subtle tint of his lips. “I usually wouldn’t put so much blush on a guy, but you have to look a little wine drunk, so…” 

“It looks good. I thought I’d look like a drunk asshole, but I don’t.” 

“There’s a little color around your eyes, too, because I couldn’t resist. You have really pretty eyes.” 

“Thank you.” 

His cheekbones looked a little more pronounced. 

“Okay, now I’m going to put this grapevine crown on you.” 

She grabbed a weird strand of fake leaves and wrapped it around his head and pinned it in place. It didn’t look quite as stupid as Kyungsoo expected. 

“Hey, Dahyun!” Jungyeon called from across the room.

“What?” 

“Gold highlights on everybody? I mean they’re gods. Or at least extra highlights.” 

“Oh, yeah that sounds good, hold on.” She sat Kyungsoo down and took off his glasses again and fished out another brush and did some more brushing over the tops of his cheeks and nose and forehead. She sprayed on some setting spray. 

“There. That looks good.” 

They repeated the camera process and Kyungsoo barely noticed a difference. He just looked a little glitterier.

“It’ll look better in the sun. Go watch her finish up Jongin so I can get to the next person. It was great to meet you.” 

“Yeah, you too. Thank you.” 

“No problem.” 

Jongin looked glorious, blond hair full of gold and swept out of his face. He was wearing cold contacts and gold glitter dusted his tan collar bones and the top of his chest, and down the length of his arms. His makeup was a lot heavier than Kyungsoo’s. He really did look like a god.

“Fuck, Jongin, you look great.” 

Jongin looked up at him and stared for a minute. “Wow, you look great too. I can’t even tell what she did.” He reached up and almost touched Kyungsoo’s lips before thinking better of it. “You look really awesome. Take your glasses off.” 

Kyungsoo took them off, and Jongin’s slightly blurry face stared up at him for another couple seconds. “Damn.” 

Jungyeon turned his face back towards her and kept brushing. After another couple minutes she let them go after snapping a few pictures. 

Byulyi took Jongin’s place. She was wearing a fabulous Greek soldier costume. She had a nice with a nicely draped white Greek gown thing underneath. She set a javelin and a helmet down next to her seat. Jungyeon looked her up and down with a smile. 

“That’s not Jihyo’s costume.” 

“I like this one better.” 

“Me too, actually. I feel like I can do more makeup-wise with this.” 

Jongin and Kyungsoo headed out to sit under a tree next to the completed Float. The chariot made the whole thing. It looked awesome. Other than that it was probably exactly what Jihyo imagined. Craft and execution might save them, but other than that The Float wasn’t winning anything. Not aggressive, spirited, or punny enough.

“I feel very silly in this toga.” 

“You look great though.” 

Kyungsoo looked over to find Jongin staring at him again. Those color contacts were doing things to Kyungsoo. “Thanks. Can you see out of gold things?” 

“The contacts? Yeah. My eyesight really isn’t that bad to begin with.” Jongin slid up close and rested his chin on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “It’s warm today.” 

“Yeah. Thank goodness, you would be freezing if it wasn’t.” 

“True. Things are a bit breezy down there.” 

Kyungsoo snickered and tried not to think to hard about down there. 

Hyejin and Byulyi joined them first first, looking glorious. Byulyi had her hair in a French braid and fierce makeup. Hyejin looked sultry and beautiful with a couple gold and blue headbands in her plaited hair and a gold tiara. She looked curvy even in the loose drapes of her chiton. 

“You two look hot.” 

“So do you guys.” Byulyi hiked up her skirts and sat down. “I think as a class we’ll look like we missed the point, but we missed the point with more style than anybody else.” 

“Well at least we had fuuun,” Hyejin sing-songed while dancing around. Tzuyu and Momo appeared around the corner as Persephone and Demeter and glared at them. They were covered in fake flowers and leaves and they looked lovely and mean at the same time. 

Kris and Junmyeon were the next to appear. They immediately claimed the chariot. Junmyeon looked kind of sad for some reason. Jongin giggled. “He didn’t want to be Hephaestus, but neither did anyone else, so as class president he took one for the team.” 

Sehun came out with a black drape over his long white skirt and just as much skin showing as Jongin. He had a spikey black crown and a staff, and very scary intense makeup. Tzuyu as Persephone decided it was time to get in character and latched onto his arm. Zitao was dressed in red with armor. He looked even more terrifying than usual. A bee buzzed passed and he ran away squealing while Sehun rolled his eyes. 

Baekhyun and Wheein joined them under their tree with Jongdae in tow. Wheein’s entire outfit was gold. She carried a sign with some school pride, fighting pun. Baekhyun was dressed a lot like like Jongin with the skirt, but with less armor and more skin covered. He at least had both sleeves. He also had a winged circlet and winged shoes, which was pretty cool. His makeup was just about as involved as Jongin’s just because he was just that pretty and apparently Jungyeon went to town. Even Kyungsoo found himself staring a little too much. 

“Chanyeol is going to love that.” 

“I’m counting on it.” 

Chanyeol appeared with gorgeous blue makeup touches and a crown of seashells, fishing nets full of fake seaweed and shells draped with his toga. Baekhyun’s mouth fell open. Jongdae snapped a picture. 

After that the only people left were Jihyo as Aphrodite, Yongsun as Artemis, and the red haired girl from their Float brainstorm party as Hestia. Apparently her name was Mina. Jihyo actually was the golden goddess filter on Instagram, right down to the golden butterflies in her hair. “You’d think she was queen of the gods,” Hyejin grumbled and adjusted her tiara. 

Yongsun had a lot of silver in her outfit and a moon crown. She carried a bow and arrow and a cooler full of water bottles that she passed around. When she was done she joined the group under the tree and plopped down next to Jongin. 

“Hey there, twin brother, what’s shakin?”

“Everybody looks hot.” 

“Don’t they? It’s like a beautiful Greek buffet.” She gestured out towards the crowd of people in togas. “Which will you choose?” 

Jongin giggled but didn’t choose anyone, which was a relief. “Costume and makeup did a fantastic job.” 

There were a number of extra people in simpler togas milling around as well, the rest of the cheerleaders and non-football athletes, but Kyungsoo didn’t know any of them. They all had to walk. The gods got to stand around on The Float the whole time. 

“Oh jeez, we have to show school spirit, don’t we? I don’t have any of that.” 

Baekhyun clapped him on the shoulder. “Welp, you can always just look drunk and pass out against one of the pillars.” 

“I might do that, actually.” 

Jongin elbowed him. “If you don’t have any school spirit I’ll just have to beat it into you.” 

Kyungsoo dawned the most psychotically happy smile he could muster and turned slowly towards Jongin, who giggled and scrambled backwards into Yongsun’s lap. 

“Guys, he just looked at me.” 

“What?” 

Baekhyun poked Kyungsoo in the side. “Chanyeol. We just made eye contact. He saw me and nearly dropped his water.” 

The great god of the sea did look a little flustered. 

The two hours until the parade passed in a breeze, with Jongin’s head on his lap and Baekhyun and Jongdae chasing each other all over until Jihyo lost her shit at them. Finally, they all got lined up. Dahyun ran around and touched up lipstick. Jihyo barked orders and shouted at Byulyi for her costume until Minseok appeared out of nowhere dressed as a member of the lollipop guild and told her to stop yelling at his sister. The seniors must have been Wizard of Oz themed. 

“Do you think Jihyo is going to have any fun?” 

Jongin sighed and wrapped his arms around Kyungsoo’s waist. “You know, I think she is having fun, actually.” 

The actual parade went by in an underwhelming blur. Kyungsoo waved and chanted a little, Jihyo gave him some grapes to wave around, so he did and one of the grapes few off and hit Kris in the face. But most of the time he watched the way Jongin waved at everyone in the school that he knew, and how the entire crowd lit up when he waved. He watched the gold shimmer off his shoulders, and the way the makeup turned him into pure sex on legs. No little bear here. Jongin was seductive and powerful as he played the crowd. His chest hurt again.

Baekhyun stuck close to Kyungsoo’s side and provided commentary to keep Kyungsoo smiling. “Oh look, Kris is staring at Jongin’s ass again. That’s the fourth time he’s done that. Now he’s looking at Hyejin’s. That’s the fifth time. Four for Jongin, five for Hyejin. Oh god, one for Junmyeon, there’s just no controlling this guy. I’m beginning to worry for my own ass.” 

“What ass?” 

“Shut the fuck up.” Baekhyun slid a little closer. “Chanyeol likes my ass.” 

“You have an ass?” 

“I never asked for your opinion, Kyungsoo. When he was wasted the other day, touching my ‘cute little butt’ made his list of things he missed.” 

Kyungsoo winced. “Gross. No wonder he’s too embarrassed to face you.” 

Baekhyun was quiet for a moment, and Kyungsoo turned to see him staring intently at a different part of The Float. Kyungsoo followed his gaze and found Chanyeol staring just as intently back. Kyungsoo slid closer to Jongin. 

“The odds of me going to the dance with you are steadily increasing.” 

Jongin’s golden eyes flashed with glee and he glanced back and forth between the Chanyeol vs Baekhyun stare off. “Goal of the night: make that happen.” 

“You know, I’m not sure it’s going to need any of our help. With Baekhyun in that makeup?”

“Yeah, wow. He looks good.” 

Jongin turned back to the crowd and waved his hands a little, and Kyungsoo was knocked back by the ensuing roar. Jongin laughed. “This is fun, Soo, try it.” Another roar. 

“They only do that for you, Nini.” 

There was an angry tap on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. He turned around to find Jihyo with a very fake smile on her face. Her eyes spoke fury. 

“Kyungsoo take you glasses off are you out of your mind Greek gods didn’t wear glasses we’re supposed to be looking hot here and I look over here and you’re wearing glasses Dahyun worked hard on your makeup and now you just want to cover it up if I see those glasses on you again I swear to god I am going to loose my shit.” 

Kyungsoo removed his glasses. 

Jongin stepped in. “Jihyo not being able to see is a safety concern. If somebody walks off the edge of The Float because you wouldn’t let them wear glasses, then that’s on you.” 

“Well, Jongin, since you never fucking leave his side, I trust you not to let him fall off The Float.” She stomped away. Kyungsoo clipped his glasses to the front of his shirt and looked back at Jongin. Even slightly blurry, Kyungsoo could tell how gorgeous he was. Especially from up so close. Jongin reached down and grabbed his hand. 

“Can you see me?” 

“For the most part, yes. You’re really shiny.”

Jongin giggled. “I’m the sun god. You look really good, by the way. I know I already said it, but seriously.” He reached up and put his free hand on Kyungsoo’s cheek, thumb brushing under his eye. Kyungsoo leaned into it. 

“You too. I want to say you look fierce but I know that’s some kind of fashion slang and I don’t want to misuse it.” 

“Fierce works. Probably in both senses.” 

“Good. You look fierce.” 

Jongin laughed and dropped his hand from Kyungsoo’s face. Baekhyun reappeared at Kyungsoo’s side. “Five for Jongin, seven for Hyejin, two for Junmyeon, and, wait for it, three for Zitao.” 

“This kid is due for his gay crisis any day now.” 

“What?” Jongin leaned forward to look around Kyungsoo at Baekhyun, who was looking back at Kris. 

“Six for Jongin. This is a running tally of who’s asses Kris is looking at.” 

“And you’re saying I’m not number one?” 

“Your ass can’t compete with Hyejin’s, I’m sorry.” 

“I’m really not offended by that.” Jongin stepped away and did a set of cool hip heavy dance moves to the beat of the parade music. The crowd went wild. Jongin returned. 

“Okay, you’re beating Hyejin now.” 

“That’s what I like to hear.” 

When The Float finally came to a stop, some extremely tall senior hefted Wheein up to sit on one of his shoulders, and lady victory led the crowd into the stadium with lots of fanfare and a very stressed Jongdae hot on her heels. Jihyo obviously still didn’t get the point. She tried desperately to get Kris to do the same with her, but he was too busy staring at asses to pay attention. 

The cheerleaders rushed off to get changed. The rest of the class stayed in costume. No use changing if they just had to get back into costume for the toga party later. Baekhyun, Jongin, Kyungsoo, Sehun, and Yixing found some bleachers and sat down. Victory was still being marched up and down the football field, so Kyungsoo and Baekhyun reserved spots for her and Jongdae. Chanyeol appeared and sat down next to Baekhyun. Jongin slapped excitedly at Kyungsoo’s leg. Baekhyun looked very stiff. 

Kyungsoo decided he would have had a lot less fun if he wasn’t in costume. There was something very absurd about attending a high school football game looking like one of the ancient Greek scholars they learned about in history class. An entire section of the bleachers looked like they were there to watch the first ever Olympics. Jongdae and Wheein finally reappeared, Wheein looking breathless and pleased, Jongdae looking extremely relieved. Jongdae snapped pictures left and right, and then took a few extra of Baekhyun and Chanyeol being awkward. Jongin got up and bought everyone hotdogs. Yongsun brought more water. 

Jongin, Yixing, and Sehun got up in front of the crowd and did sexy dances routines in their togas before the cheerleaders reappeared. Jongin even took off his shoulder drape thing and did body rolls shirtless, wicked smirk never leaving his face. The student body in the bleachers got very high pitched and excited. A group of five or six underclassmen girls behind them lost their shit completely. Jongdae laughed at Kyungsoo’s carefully blank expression and then got down close to take pictures. Kyungsoo had a feeling he was going to get spammed with pictures of sexy shirtless Jongin later. 

The cheerleaders came back, most of them still in parade makeup, and put on the performance of their lives, and then the football players came out and grunted some more and put on the performance of a bunch of confused gorillas with brain damage. By half time it was clear the home team was going to lose by an embarrassing margin. 

Half way through the second half Jongin asked “You guys want to get dinner before the after party?” and half the toga section got up and left for the nearest Panera.


	7. Chapter 7

“Do you like Panera, Soo?” 

Kyungsoo looked down at his half finished sandwich. “Yes, I’m beginning to like Panera.” 

Jongin nudged their shoulders together. His contacts were gone, but even without the golden eyes and squeezed into a chain restaurant booth, Jongin looked godly. “You have gold all over your toga.” 

“Really?” 

“I’ve been rubbing up against you all day.” 

That was true. Jongin had barely left his side for a moment. “Thanks for sticking with me. I think I would have been really uncomfortable on my own.” 

“You had fun, right?” 

“Yeah, actually, I did.” Even without the added bonus of staring at Jongin half shirtless and shimmering all day, he had a pretty good time. 

Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Wheein were all squeezed into the booth across from them. Jongdae looked out of place in his normal clothes. 

“I can’t go. I wasn’t part of the parade. I’m not in a toga.” 

Jongin scoffed. “No one is going to care. You’re friends with how many Float people? You helped build it. Everyone is going to be drunk anyway.” 

Jongdae looked unconvinced. 

“Seriously, if you come in with me no one is going to question it.” 

“That’s true.” 

Baekhyun was checked out of the conversation. He kept trading looks with Chanyeol from a different booth. Kyungsoo saw them mouthing things to each other and giggling. 

Climbing out of Jongin’s car at Jihyo’s house felt like a scene from a movie. The house was decorated in fake vines and white drapes, and there were people in togas everywhere. Jihyo rolled up just after they did and climbed out of her car, back in Aphrodite gear, already drunk, and pulled Kyungsoo into a hug. 

“Kyungsoo! We lost the game, hahahahaha!” She stumbled off with a very annoyed Kris and Zitao in tow. Jongin grabbed Kyungsoo’s hand and pulled him inside. 

“Come on, lets get drunk!” 

The house was just as crowded as the last party. Jongin found a table full of solo cups and handed them each a glass of mystery punch. 

“Aren’t you supposed to… not drink mystery punch at parties?” 

Jongin took a big swig of his own. “Wow, that’s strong. Don’t worry, I always have the punch. You’ll be fine, just don’t drink too much.” He took another big swig and pulled Kyungsoo towards the beer pong room. Kyungsoo took a tentative sip of the punch. The burn immediately went up into his nose and made his eyes water, and burned his throat on the way down. It settled hot and uneasy in his stomach. There was no way he was getting drunk for the first time tonight if he had to do it drinking this. 

“Have you ever played beer pong?” Jongin yelled in his ear over the noise. 

“No. Is there beer?” 

“No we play with water because its less of a mess when it spills. You just have to drink whenever the other side scores.” 

He pulled Kyungsoo up to the end of a table across from Junmyeon and Sehun. The game really ended up being Sehun vs Jongin, because Junmyeon was even worse at beer bong than Kyungsoo was, not to mention he was already drunk enough to wrap himself around Sehun’s waist and giggle hysterically when Kyungsoo missed. Sehun looked like he needed another drink.

Jihyo appeared out of the crowd looking way too happy. “Kyungsoo! I brought you something! Oh my god look you guys are all Float gods! Someone take a picture of all the gods playing beer pong! Kyungsoo you’re the wine god, so I brought you wine!” 

She thrust an actual wine glass into his hand, half full of red liquid. 

“Thanks Jihyo.” 

“No problem! I’m so glad you were Dionysus. I think you were a good one. You’re the god of wine and parties, so this party is, like, yours! Hahahaha!” She grabbed Kris’s arm and disappeared back into the crowd. Drunk people were really weird.

Sehun won the beer pong game. Junmyeon celebrated excessively and knocked over four cups of water. Jongin pulled Kyungsoo out to the back patio dance floor with a breathtaking smile. “Drink the wine! Things get a lot more fun when you drink!” 

The wine also burned a little, but less so. It was bitter but drinkable. Kyungsoo choked it down while Jongin took his solo cup of mystery punch and finished that too. He had a happy flush on his cheeks. “Do you want to dance?” 

“Definitely not.” 

“Oh come on.” 

“Maybe later.” 

Jongin left him at the edge of the floor again and shimmied seductively into the writhing mass of drunk high schoolers. Just like last time, Baekhyun appeared at his side. 

“Kyungsoo, oh shit where did you get that wine?” 

“I’m the wine god. I can materialize this shit.” 

“Right. I think things are going well with the tall idiot.” 

“That’s good. We’re all rooting for you.” The wine was beginning the settle weirdly in the pit of his stomach, and he felt just a little dizzy when he turned his head. The party was a little more fun though. 

Chanyeol slid up to Baekhyun’s side and handed him a drink. He looked great in a shell crown. He couldn’t take his eyes off Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo kind of felt like a third wheel. 

Jongin danced out of the crowd, shirtless again, carrying the other part of his costume. He crashed giggled into Kyungsoo’s side, almost spilling the wine, and buried his face in Kyungsoo’s neck. “I think I’m a little drunk, Soo.” 

“Good, that was the goal.” Kyungsoo felt out of his depth, dealing with drunk people, and out of breath with drunk shirtless Jongin plastered to his front. He finished the wine and held the glass safely out of the way as Jongin flopped around and spoke right in his ear. “You should dance with me.” His hands slid low on Kyungsoo’s sides, and Kyungsoo stiffened. 

“I really shouldn’t. Seriously that would just be sad.” 

“You don’t have to know how.” Jongin’s slips smeared over the shell of his ear. “I just want to grind on you.” 

Ack. “That’s. Uh. Not… Um. I-I think I’d feel really awkward.” Jongin was so much warmth pressed up against him, all sensual touches and soft wet lips. He pulled back a little to look into Kyungsoo’s eyes. He looked dazed, flushed and happy. 

“You could grind on me, if you want.” He smirked, teasing. “You have a nice ass.” His hands slid down Kyungsoo’s back and squeezed the swell of his ass, and Kyungsoo’s breath hitched in surprise. He hastily removed the other boy’s hands. 

“No thanks. I’d really rather not do that. Um.” Sehun was dancing somewhere in view and Kyungsoo thought about suggesting he go dance with Sehun instead, but he didn’t really want to see Jongin grinding on somebody else, so he didn’t. Jongin was still cute and perfect even with glazed eyes and wandering hands. 

Momo ran up and gave Jongin a hug, and Kyungsoo was free for a few minutes to squeeze closer to Baekhyun and freak out. 

“Baek, he’s really handsy.” 

“Ooh, lucky you.” 

“No, not lucky me. This is weird and he’s drunk and he doesn’t even know I’m gay.” 

“I really don’t think he cares if people are gay or not.” 

Kyungsoo groaned and let Baekhyun check back into his conversation with Chanyeol. Who needed understanding friends anyway? 

Jongdae and Wheein were clearing their own little corner of the dance floor with horrible interpretive dancing. Jongin ran over and joined them for a minute, and then came back and wrapped himself around Kyungsoo again. 

“Soo,” he slurred, “you’re my best friend.” 

The guilt was back. “Really? We’ve only known each other for a month and you have so many friends.” 

“Yes, but out of all my friends I like you the most. You’re just so smart and patient.” 

“Thank you, Jongin. That’s really sweet.” 

“You have close friends like Baekhyun and Jongdae, but all my friends are kind of superficial, you know, like they’re only there for each other when it’s easy. But you’re not like that.” 

“Of course not.” 

Jongin reached up and began sloppily removing grape vines from Kyungsoo’s hair. Thank goodness. He let Jongin brush his fingers through his hair for a while even after all the vines and pins were gone. His arm stayed wrapped stiffly around Jongin’s waist. 

“It’s already eleven.” 

“Yeah it is.” 

“I’m going to dance a little more. Would you be okay with leaving a bit early?” 

“Yeah, definitely.” A nice shower and his bed sounded really good. It had been a long day and he was already tired of the party. 

By go dance a little more, Jongin meant for another half hour or so. Baekhyun and Chanyeol disappeared with the last remaining traces of Kyungsoo’s wine buzz. Kyungsoo was really really tired of his toga. He wanted to get back to Jongin’s car so he could get his pants. Jongin’s costume piece sat draped across the banister beside him. Hyejin and Byulyi stopped by for a minute or two for a couple hugs and some snarky jokes, which got him through until about eleven thirty-five. Jongin finally reappeared by his side. 

“Can we go now?” 

“Yeah. I just gotta say bye to people and call Jungah.” 

Jongin pulled him through the house by the hand, skin shining with sweat and gold dust. His hair was a mess, his makeup was smudged, but he still looked beyond perfect under the party lights. The sea of togas parted for him like he was royalty. Eyes followed him. Kyungsoo saw more than a few hands drag across his bare skin as the shoved their way through the crowd. Jongin said goodbye to Jihyo, Momo, Sehun, Tzuyu, Yixing, Kris, Zitao, Wheein and Jongdae, Mina, Nayeon, Junmyeon, several other cheerleaders, and then finally at about twelve fifteen he pulled Kyungsoo out the front door. 

“That was really fun!” 

“Uh. Yeah it was. I’m glad you had a good time.” Kyungsoo really wanted to go home. If he had to look at shirtless Jongin anymore he might just break down. Maybe the wine was making him emotional. 

Jongin pulled Kyungsoo towards an idling car by the curb. 

“What about your car?” 

“I can’t drive, silly, I’m drunk. Well, not really as much anymore, but still drunk enough to be careful.”

“I know, but my stuff is in your car.” 

“We’ll get it tomorrow morning.” 

“O-oh.” 

Jongin opened the door to the backseat and pulled them both in. Kyungsoo watched his pants get smaller and smaller out the back window.

“How was the party guys?” Jungah looked back at them with twinkling eyes at a stop light. 

“Really, really fun sis. Best party yet this year.” 

“Kyungsoo, you look far too sober.” 

“I don’t like jungle juice.” 

“That, my dear, is a wise decision. Jongin, you’re not drinking the party punch, are you?” 

“Um. Yes?” 

She shook her head. “You might be able to get away with that in high school, but never in college, you hear me? It is not worth the risk. I’d learn to stick to beer now if I were you.” 

“Okay sis.” He draped himself over Kyungsoo’s side, one arm behind his back, hand gripping his side. The other hand slid up his thigh. Jongin’s head rested on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, and Kyungsoo closed his eyes and focused on breathing. 

Jongin’s hand slid from his thigh up to his stomach, and then heavily over his chest. Kyungsoo remembered Jongin saying something about being not that drunk. He was used to Jongin being cuddly, but this was different. This was a lot more like how Jongin used to be with Kris back when they were hooking up. 

When the got to the house, Kyungsoo hurriedly thanked Jongin’s sister as he was pulled out of the car and dragged up the garage stairs. She gave him a smile and a wink, which Kyungsoo didn’t find very reassuring, and then nearly tripped over his toga on the way into the house. 

“Ah. Jongin, I really want to change out of this damn toga. Can I borrow some pajamas?” 

“Sure. Come on.” 

Three flights of stairs at top speed was not Kyungsoo’s idea of fun. They were both panting by the time they reached Jongin’s room. Jongin didn’t bother turning the lights on. There was more than enough light coming from the street lamp through window. He dropped Kyungsoo’s hand to yank a pair of flannel pants and a t-shirt out of his drawers. Jongin still seemed keyed up and excited, like he wasn’t in the mood for sleeping or face masks. Kyungsoo pulled the pants on under his costume and then yanked the toga off and the shirt on as fast as he could. 

He wasn’t quite fast enough. Warm hands landed on his waist and slid up his chest under the thin t-shirt. 

“Jongin, what—“ 

Something hot and wet landed on his neck. Kyungsoo gasped. Jongin’s mouth slid up to his ear, leaving a wet trial behind. “Soo…” Heat flared between Kyungsoo’s legs. 

Jongin spun him around and pushed him backwards into the bed and then crawled onto Kyungsoo’s lap. The skirt had been left somewhere behind. Jongin sat down on Kyungsoo’s thighs in only his boxers and grabbed Kyungsoo’s face with both hands. This was happening. Jongin had brought him back to his house to hook up. 

Jongin’s leaned in for a scorching kiss. They’d done this before, but they weren’t high now, and Jongin wasn’t wearing nearly as many clothes. Kyungsoo’s heart almost stopped as soft, perfect lips crashed against his, pressing and sucking with pretty little moans. Jongin kissed with his whole body, pressing Kyungsoo backwards until he found himself with his back in the sheets, Jongin’s addictive mouth working his open, tongue sliding between his lips. No wonder even straight boys let Jongin have his way with them. Jongin thought he was one of them. Was this how he seduced every nervous, unsure boy who he convinced to take him to bed? With breathtaking kisses and soft moans? And Kyungsoo had been dreaming about this for weeks now. And he wanted this. He wanted to kiss Jongin every day for the rest of his life until Jongin didn’t want him anymore.

“Jongin, stop.” Jongin’s lips turned slow and confused until Kyungsoo gently pushed him off, panic mounting. 

Jongin pulled back hesitantly, face falling, and Kyungsoo’s gut twisted anxiously. He didn’t want to make Jongin look like that. “Soo? Wh-what’s wrong?” 

Kyungsoo sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, hoping he wasn’t wearing enough makeup to smear. Jongin hovered off to the side, looking very much like a little bear like his sister said he was, small and unsure. He probably wasn’t used to being pushed away. Especially not by people he trusted.

“You can’t… you can’t do this to me, okay?” The panic was pushing up into his throat, making it difficult not to shout in frustration. Jongin pulled a pillow into his lap and hugged it to his chest to cover up all his bare skin.

“What do you mean?” His voice was so soft, like he was scared.

“I’m gay, Jongin.” 

Jongin was smart. Kyungsoo really hoped he didn’t have to say anything else. 

“So?”

Goddammit. Kyungsoo was so tired. He really just wanted to go home and not do this. He didn’t want to lose a friend tonight. Or take one away from Jongin. It had been such a good night. He already wanted to cry. “So? You really don’t see how that might be a problem? After four weeks of spending time with each other and cuddling and that one time we made out, and let’s not forget you’re inhumanly perfect somehow, do you really not see how that might be a problem for me as someone who’s gay?”

He took a deep breath while Jongin hugged the pillow tighter and drew back, eyes wide and guilty. “I’m sorry, that came out harsher than I meant it. This is my fault. I should have told you I was gay weeks ago. Just… I really really like you Jongin, and I can’t just hook up with you and let it go like you want me to. I would hurt me too much.” 

Jongin stared over his pillow, lips parted, eyebrows furrowed in distress. He was so beautiful with his tousled hair and perfect pink lips in the dim light of the room. “I just ended up being another Kris. I’m so sorry.” There were tears prickling the backs of his eyes. “I-I’ll call my mom. She can drive me home. I can’t stay here. I’m sorry.” 

As he got up Jongin lurched forward and grabbed his hand. “No. Soo, stay. Please.” 

Kyungsoo was beginning to think Jongin really didn't understand how bad feelings hurt. “Jongin, I can’t. You can’t just hold me and pretend we can still be best friends. Please let me go.”

Jongin shook his head frantically. “You don’t understand. I-I haven’t hooked up with anyone for two weeks. Not since we kissed.” 

Kyungsoo froze, confused. He knew enough about Jongin to know that was a long time for him. And not since they kissed? “Really?” 

Jongin nodded, wetness gathering along his lashes. “I don’t want to kiss anyone else. I want you.” 

Kyungsoo’s tried to process. His head spun. Jongin tugged on his hand and Kyungsoo let himself be pulled closer so Jongin could wrap his arms around Kyungsoo’s waist and bury his face in his stomach. “I’ve never felt like this before. Like I could give up ever kissing anyone else again if I could just have you. I really really like you, too.” 

Relief washed over Kyungsoo like water. He pushed his hands into Jongin’s hair and held on as hope trickled warmly through his body. Jongin liked him. Perfect, beautiful Jongin. How was that possible? 

“I did think you were straight,” Jongin continued, muffled against Kyungsoo’s shirt, “You seemed really flustered with Byulyi and Hyejin that one time. But I want you so much. I was willing to try anything. I though… I thought I could just do what I do with all the straight boys, and maybe you would come around like Kris did. I never wanted to upset you. I should have just told you. I’m sorry.” 

Kyungsoo tipped Jongin’s face up and leaned down to kiss his cheek, right under his eye. Then the other cheek. Jongin’s fingers fisted into his t-shirt. His eyes fluttered closed. Kyungsoo pulled back to look down at him, sitting mostly naked on the edge of the bed, clutching at Kyungsoo’s shirt with his upturned face, his smooth, soft skin and pretty eyelashes lit gently by the street lamp. He looked so vulnerable. It hit Kyungsoo like a train. Kim Jongin trusted him. Kim Jongin wanted him. And Kyungsoo wanted to worship him. He bent down again and pressed pressed butterfly kisses to the corners of his eyes and the peaks of his cheekbones. 

“Does this mean,” Kyungsoo whispered, and his voice shook, “does this mean I can be with you?” 

“Yes,” Jongin breathed, and Kyungsoo kissed the word from his lips. “Yes, please. I want to be yours. All the time.” 

Kyungsoo found himself laughing. “Me too. I want to be yours too.” Jongin pulled Kyungsoo down to lie next to him, and took Kyungsoo’s glasses off and put them on the windowsill. Kyungsoo wrapped him tight in his arms that he wished were just a little longer. Just so he could hold Jongin tighter. His lips found Jongin’s again. 

Kyungsoo knew he would never get tired of the way Jongin’s lips felt against his. He would never get tired of the way Jongin’s hair felt between his fingers, or the softness of Jongin’s skin under his fingers. He would never get over the way Jongin mewled against his lips when Kyungsoo finally worked up the courage to slide a hand up Jongin’s thigh to pet over the curve of his ass over his briefs. Kyungsoo lost his shirt somewhere along the way. He turned Jongin onto his back and kissed his way down his throat and over his sternum, and then back up over his collarbones and shoulders. He kissed the inside of his wrist and the palm of his hand. He went back to Jongin’s lips with slow, heavy presses, and Jongin melted. 

After an hour of nothing but kisses, Kyungsoo and Jongin traded time in the bathroom to get ready to sleep. Kyungsoo pushed a full glass of water into Jongin’s hand and the sucked barely visible marks into his shoulders while he finished it. The marks would be gone by the morning. Jongin set down his glass and turned to give Kyungsoo another sloppy smooch. 

“When I teach you what you’re doing, it’s going to be the best sex I’ve ever had. Do you know how many people I’ve kissed, Do Kyungsoo? I’ve never enjoyed making out with someone that much.” 

“Likewise.” 

“Have you kissed anyone besides me?” 

“Nope.” 

Jongin pouted, and Kyungsoo stretched up to kiss it away. “But I’m sure if I had, you’d still be the best.” He pulled the beautiful boy back to bed, and they folded around each other so easily like they always did. Kyungsoo knew he would wake up sweaty and too warm, but Jongin pressed his face into Kyungsoo’s neck, and Kyungsoo didn’t care about anything but how good he felt in his arms. 

“I can’t believe you like me back.” 

Jongin giggled. “I can’t believe my plan to seduce you went so well so fast. I actually didn’t plan to jump you tonight. I was going to keep snuggling and kissing you when we were high and stuff, and then I was going to convince you to try different sex things with me, and then pray there was a gay bone somewhere in your body that I could tap into. Jumping you tonight was a booze and adrenaline decision.” 

“Oh god I’m so glad you didn’t get to play the long game. I would’ve died.” 

“In retrospect, not a great plan. But you made a very convincing straight boy, I wasn’t sure what to do.” 

“Given your normal habits, I can’t exactly blame you for it.” 

“Mm.” 

Kyungsoo thought back to the last time they’d kissed in Jongin’s bed. “What are your friends going to think? Should we keep this on the DL so they don’t disown you or something?”

“If we keep it on the DL then how will I brag about having the best boyfriend on the face of the planet? I’m not hiding shit. Unless you want to stay in the closet. Then we can talk. Do your parents know?” 

“My mom knows. My dad might too. I don’t know how much she tells him. Are you sure? People really aren’t going to get it. They’re going to say why the hell did Prince Kim Jongin, god of sex and the sun, fashion icon, model man of our generation and dancing machine, decide to tie himself down to some antisocial choir nerd that looks like a penguin? Why are you doing that by the way? Sounds like a bad idea.”

Jongin laughed and squeezed him closer. “Because that antisocial coir nerd turned out to make me happier than anyone I’ve ever met. He can sing like an angel, and he’s smart, patient, sensible, kind, level headed and trustworthy. Not to mention handsome. I couldn’t let him get away. If my friends don’t like it, I’ll tell them to shut up. If they shut me out, I know I have someone else to sit with at lunch. I’ll be okay if I have you.” 

“Fuck you’re so out of my league. I’m not that great, but I promise you’ll always have a seat at my lunch table.”

“Oh hush, you’re the one out of my league.” 

Another couple minutes of peaceful quiet. 

“Soo?” 

“Nini?” 

“I’m so happy you like me back.” 

And oh god, how could he not have liked Jongin? Perfect, beautiful Jongin. Of all the gorgeous, interesting people that Jongin had to choose from, he’d chosen Kyungsoo, who had no other choice but him. 

“I’m happy you like me back too.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Soo, open your eyes.”

Kyungsoo groaned and cracked an eye open. The light was too bright. 

“Could you smile a little? Look happy to see me?” 

“I can’dseeyou.” 

“Just pretend you can.” 

Kyungsoo did his best to crack his eyes open and smile. 

“Look to your left.” Jongin’s voice came from close by, somewhere near Kyungsoo’s chin. He looked leftwards. “Your other left, Soo.” 

On Kyungsoo’s other left was Jongin’s phone. He could make out a couple faces on the screen. Their faces. “Ryou takinga pigture?” 

“Yup.” 

Jongin dropped his head down onto Kyungsoo’s chest, and Kyungsoo wrapped his arms around his bare shoulders and buried his face in the top of Jongin’s hair. 

“Got it. Fuck that’s cute. I’m going to post it, okay?” 

“K”

Kyungsoo relaxed back into the warm blankets as Jongin fiddled with his phone above him. Jongin. His boyfriend. He was in a relationship now. 

“I am so glad you made me drink that water last night. And brush my teeth. I feel like a new man.” 

“Mmm, me too.” He let his hands drift down Jongin’s back under the blankets, reveling in the fact that he could, all that beautiful skin and he could touch if he wanted to. He could touch Jongin. Beautiful Jongin. His hands slid down and down, expecting to reach the waistband of Jongin’s briefs, and instead just slid over the bare curve of his ass. Kyungsoo was awake now. “Weren’t you wearing underwear last night?” 

“I was, but I’ve already been up this morning to drink more water and take a piss and brush my teeth again. And I took them off. I figured I wouldn’t need them this morning.” 

Kyungsoo opened his eyes again and gave the soft flesh a few experimental squeezes. Jongin pressed his lips to Kyungsoo’s jaw and kissed his way up towards his mouth with a satisfied hum. He gave Kyungsoo a few quick pecks and then went back to his phone. “What time is it?” 

“It’s already ten. And… there. We’re social media official. I just made an Instagram post.” He turned the phone around and Kyungsoo squinted up at the screen. It was close enough to his face that he could see the picture of them that Jongin had just taken, and a little caption above. 

“What does it say?” 

“It says Do Kyungsoo is officially taken, and I’m cancelling all my other dates. Relationship status: changed. Best homecoming ever.”

“Guess that’s pretty unambiguous.” 

“I should hope so. I’ll check back on that later.” He set his phone aside and resettled himself on top of Kyungsoo, thighs spread on either side of his hips and arms braced beside his head. He was so flexible. Kyungsoo placed both hands on his waist and squeezed. 

“I want you to fuck me.” 

Kyungsoo’s breath hitched nervously, but his gut stirred with excitement. He swallowed it down. 

“Yeah?” 

“Not this morning though. I’ve never gotten the chance to take is slow with anyone. I want to spread things out a bit.” He laughed again. “You can fuck me after the dance tonight.” 

Kyungsoo smiled. “Yeah, that’s real spread out. I want to fuck you too. I’d fuck you now if you wanted me to, but I am pretty new to this so I’m happy to follow your lead.” 

Jongin slowly pushed himself upright. The blankets fell down to pool on Kyungsoo’s legs behind him, and he sat straddling Kyungsoo’s hips, ass directly on top of his dick with just this side of too much pressure, in nothing but his beautiful golden skin in the morning light. Oh god Jongin was naked on his lap. 

Kyungsoo rubbed circles into the crease of his hips and kept his eyes focused on Jongin’s face. Jongin braced both hands on Kyungsoo’s chest and rocked his hips. Kyungsoo moaned.

“When I first noticed you, it was the day in the lunchroom where I was flirting with Chanyeol. You caught my eye because I thought you were the cutest thing. I thought you looked like an owl.” 

“Pft.” 

“I was really excited when we ended up working together for the project. I really wanted to cuddle with you. And maybe corrupt you a little.” 

He rocked some more, and Kyungsoo finally glanced down at where their hips connected. Jongin’s dick was the first not flaccid dick he’d ever seen on another male in person. Which come to think of it was a few too many qualifiers to make it really worth anything. He’d seen tons of dicks and porn. This was like breaking the record for fastest 100-meter dash for Asian men under 5’8 between the months of December and March at your local YMCA track. Not exactly the all around record at the Olympics. Still kind of cool though. 

Anyway Jongin’s dick was pretty. Average size, dark, dusty pink color that took after his tan skin, if Kyungsoo had been a braver man he would have reached down and touched it, but he was still a little nervous. 

“Well, you did manage to corrupt me. When you cuddled with me that first day at my house, that was the most intimate I’d ever been with anyone.”

Jongin smoothed his hands up Kyungsoo’s chest. “Sometimes I forget that other people think about intimacy differently than I do. I’m usually comfortable getting as close as possible to anyone at any time. Guess I won’t do that anymore.” He winked. 

“Jongin, I trust you. And I know you like touching people. I’m not going to be super protective. You can hug and cuddle with other people if you want.” 

“It won’t bother you?” 

“I’ve been watching you climb all over people for a month. It actually doesn’t bother me. I know it’s a casual thing for you. Just don’t kiss anybody.” 

“What if I ask first?” 

“This is not an open relationship.” 

Jongin giggled and pinched his cheek. “I know. But say we’re all smoking in here again, and I’m like hey Kyungsoo do you want to watch me make out with Sehun?”

That did sound kind of hot, actually. “I’m not making any rules here. Let’s treat this on a case by case basis.” 

“What if I want to watch you make out with Sehun?” 

Kyungsoo made a face. That sounded hot and scary, but also kind of weird. “I-I mean I’d rather kiss you…” 

Jongin collapsed on top of Kyungsoo and kissed him deeply, and Kyungsoo moaned against his lips. Jongin finally sat back up, settled his weight back onto Kyungsoo’s semi, and started rocking again. “Fuck, you sound so good when you moan. I love your voice so much. I bet you could get me worked up and leaking just by talking dirty to me.” 

“I don’t think I’m very good at talking dirty.” 

“Not yet, maybe.” He wiggled around a little more. “But give it a month and you’re going to be so good at all this. You already drive me crazy now. I can’t wait until you know what you’re doing. You’re going to be able to make me a writhing, begging mess with barely any effort.” 

Kyungsoo groaned and dug his fingers into Jongin’s thighs. “Imagine how I feel. I’ve never done anything like this, and all of a sudden I have this perfect angel of sex on my lap.”

“Ooh, angel of sex. I like how that sounds. That’s going to be my Halloween costume.” 

“You’re going to kill me.” 

“Will you be the devil to my angel of sex?” 

“I was going to go as my dad, but I guess I’ll do something different.” 

“Yeah, I don’t want to dress up as the angel of sex around someone dressed as your dad. Didn’t you already dress as your dad for nerd day?” 

“Yeah I guess…” 

Jongin laughed, hips still swaying deliciously on Kyungsoo’s lap. He sat up just a little and tugged on the waistband of Kyungsoo’s pants. “Can we take these off?” 

“Okay.” He held his breath as Jongin pushed his pants down over his hips to a little way down his thighs. Jongin hummed in appreciation when Kyungsoo’s cock finally slipped free, a little thicker and as long as Jongin’s. 

“Oh god I want you in me so bad.” He reached over to the windowsill and grabbed a bottle that was tucked between the wall and the bed. He popped it open and squeezed clear, gooey liquid onto his hand.

“Aren’t we going to wait?” Kyungsoo shifted anxiously. 

“Yeah. Lube is useful for a lot of things though.” He reached down between his legs and coated everything between his cheeks and up over his balls with the lube. “Maybe I’m weird, but I love the feeling of lube. Just the gooey wetness of it. I think it’s hot.” He sat back down on Kyungsoo’s dick, and now instead of just hot and heavy, everything was slick and velvety, and when Jongin rolled his hips Kyungsoo’s cock slid into the crevice between his cheeks, smooth wet skin pressing and moving against him. Almost like he was inside… 

“Fuck. I see what you mean.” 

“Yeah? S’good, right?” 

“Really good.” 

He could feel the textured pucker of Jongin’s hole rubbing along his shaft. Jongin pressed down harder, slid faster, and Kyungsoo could feel himself go from half hard to rock solid in moments. 

Jongin slid forward until the tip of Kyungsoo’s dick pushed against his entrance, and then braced himself against Kyungsoo’s shoulders and pressed back. Kyungsoo could feel the muscles begin to twitch and give. 

“Jongin…” 

“Don’t worry. Without any prep, its not going anywhere. It just feels good.” 

Kyungsoo watched Jongin’s face. His eyes fluttered closed, eyebrows furrowed, lips parted. He reached up and pressed a thumb to Jongin’s lips, and Jongin immediately pulled the finger into his mouth and sucked. Jongin moaned prettily, muffled by the thumb, and slid back to roll his hips along Kyungsoo’s a few more times, fast and hard, and left Kyungsoo gasping as he got up on his hands and knees and backed his way down Kyungsoo’s body. Kyungsoo’s finger slid from his mouth, connected by a trail of spit. 

“I figured out what I want to do.” 

“Y-yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Jongin settled his chest on top of Kyungsoo’s legs with his face inches away from Kyungsoo’s cock. Kyungsoo’s heart beach up into his ears as he propped himself up on his elbows and looked down.

“Don’t laugh if I cum in like thirty seconds, okay?” 

“Deal. Hey, it’s less work for me if you do. Don’t worry though. I can get people off in thirty seconds, but I can also take my time.” He dipped down and began placing delicate kisses up the underside of Kyungsoo’s dick. And fuck. Jongin’s lips. On his dick. Kyungsoo had to lie back and stop watching just so he could last longer. The sensation in itself wasn’t very much though. Kyungsoo could handle this.

“You know, I’ve always been kind of scared of sex.” 

Jongin hummed to show he was listening as his tongue circled right under the crown. Kyungsoo took a minute to huff out a few breathy groans before remembering what he’d been trying to say. 

“I thought when I finally got this far, it would be scary, and I wouldn’t know what to do. But. This is oh god, do that again.” Jongin chucked. “This is easy. It’s a lot less stressful than I thought it would be.” 

“It’s fun, that’s why I do it.” Jongin licked wide stripes over Kyungsoo’s balls. 

“Fuck.” 

“Are you having fun yet?” 

“I’ve never had so much fun in my life.” Jongin cackled, and his body shook against Kyungsoo’s legs. 

Jongin knew how to tease. He painted his lips with the lube from Kyungsoo’s dick, “Look, Soo, lip-gloss,” and then again with precum. His fingers trailed up and down Kyungsoo’s shaft, and he kissed and sucked open mouthed kisses into the head until Kyungsoo was twitching with the anxious need for more. 

“You really are going to kill me.” 

“It’s been more than thirty seconds.” 

“It’s been, like, thirty minutes at this point.” 

“It’s been, like, ten. Calm down.” 

Kyungsoo kicked his feet like a kid throwing a tantrum until Jongin laughed and smacked his thigh until he stopped.

“I’ve been practicing giving blow jobs for a long time now.” His lips moved delicately against Kyungsoo’s cock.

“What, two years? At most?” 

“Okay, well I guess that’s not that long. But I’ve given a lot of blowjobs in that time. And I’m pretty fucking good at it. I’m just telling you this because if you at any point feel the need to grab my hair and fuck my throat, you can do that, I can take it.” 

Kyungsoo didn’t want to do that. “That sounds painful.” 

“It’s not the most comfortable thing, but I don’t mind.” 

“I don’t want to do that. I’ll feel like I’m hurting you.” 

“Suit yourself.” Jongin opened his mouth and engulfed half Kyungsoo’s dick. The head hit the back of his throat. Kyungsoo arched off the bed and grabbed Jongin’s shoulder, panting frantically. Hips stayed firmly in place though.

“Hooh yeah. Ugh. N-not fff—going to last. Ah!” 

Jongin laughed, which felt great with his throat wrapped around Kyungsoo’s dick. Then he sucked, and Kyungsoo dug his fingernails into his hand to hold off an orgasm. 

“Fuck! Jongin, aahhh….” 

“mmm…” 

Once he stopped sucking so damn hard it was easier to cool down. He managed to get through about a minute of Jongin bobbing easily up and down before he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jongin, I’m gunna… fuck…” 

Jongin sank all the way down until his face was buried in Kyung hips and sucked hard. The world whited out to hot, tight pleasure. Kyungsoo convulsed and came down Jongin’s throat. 

Jongin didn’t pull off until Kyungsoo was soft in his mouth, whimpering with oversensitivity. 

Kyungsoo covered his face with both hands. “Holy fuck.” 

“You sound kind of squeakier than normal.”

“Oh my god that did not take long.” 

“You lasted about as long as most people. I did work you up a lot beforehand.” Jongin stretched out on top of him and then flopped to the side. “My shoulders hurt.” 

“I’ll give you all the massages you want later, just please kiss me.” 

Jongin had perfect, soft, beautiful lips and the most wicked tongue on the planet. Kyungsoo’s head was still spinning as Jongin sucked his tongue into his mouth. 

“Will you touch me, Soo?” 

“Will I.” 

Kyungsoo pushed Jongin onto his back and slid down his body. His knees felt like Jell-O. 

“Soo, you don’t have to…” 

Kyungsoo licked up the length of Jongin’s pretty cock with the flat of his tongue. Jongin whimpered. God, that was a beautiful sound. He took Jongin’s dick in hand and kissed his way up the shaft, and Jongin moaned and wove his hand through Kyungsoo’s hair. 

“I-I love your lips, god I love your lips so much. Soo!” Kyungsoo still couldn’t believe this boy of all people found him attractive. “Please, oh my god. I’m not going to last long either.” 

Kyungsoo pulled the head of his dick into his mouth and sucked. This was a lot less difficult and gross than he had always thought it would be. He sucked and it made a weird slurping noise, but Jongin mewled and wrapped his long legs around Kyungsoo’s body, so Kyungsoo did it again. 

Jongin lasted a bit longer. It was probably something like three minutes before he cried out a warning and pulled Kyungsoo’s hair hard. Kyungsoo’s mouth filled with Jongin’s thick, surprisingly tasteless cum, and he swallowed it without thinking too hard about it and sat back up as he eased Jongin down with his hand. Jongin lay spread out and panting on the bed, hair sticking in all directions, looking nothing short of heavenly. 

“Did I do okay?” 

“Y-yeah. You did great. Oh my god.” 

Kyungsoo smiled and pulled his pants the rest of the way off. 

“Well, I’m glad I don’t suck.” 

“You did suck.” Jongin smirked and wiggled his eyebrows. 

“Oh shut up.” 

“Seriously though, I was surprised that you went for it. I don’t get blowjobs very much, except for when I hook up with people like Sehun who’s actually gay. Yixing will attempt it sometimes too. Some of the girls who don’t hate it will give blow jobs, but I don’t hook up with them as much. Also Luhan, funny enough.” 

“He’s that pretty senior, right?” 

“Yup. He’d kill you if you called him that to his face though.” 

“I know that feeling. Just with people calling me cute.” 

“You’re adorable.” 

Kyungsoo flopped onto his stomach with a groan. “I knoooow.” 

Jongin laughed and reached over to pat his butt comfortingly. “Don’t worry. By the time you’re out of college you’ll be scary levels of handsome and I’ll just say I told you so. Not that you aren’t super handsome already. You’ll just be less cute and people won’t be able to deny your hotness anymore.” 

“Thanks Nini.” 

Jongin giggled and cuddled aggressively. 

“Okay, lets check social media and then take a shower.”

“Oh boy.” 

Jongin grabbed his phone and settled back against the pillows. 

“Whoa. So many texts. Our Instagram posts has a lot of likes.” Kyungsoo dragged himself to the edge of the bed to find his phone in the discarded toga on the floor. “Junmyeon says we need to talk. Kris sent me a long one, shit. I’m going to skim it. It says something about what the fuck dude why him and not me, I can already tell.” 

“Maybe he’ll punch me again.” 

“He punched you?” 

“Yeah, a while ago. And slapped me in the face. I was fine.” 

Jongin was quiet for a moment. “I’ll deal with that later.” 

“You really don’t have to. I was kind of egging him on anyway. I think its enough that everything he shouted in my face right before he hit me just got spat right back at him. Something about how even if you didn’t like him you would never like me.” 

“I hope he cries.” 

“I hope he starts fucking Zitao and feels better about himself.” 

“You’re too kind, Kyungsoo.” 

Kyungsoo found his phone and squished himself up next to Jongin. “Speak for yourself. You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.” 

“Daw, thanks. Man, our cupcake phase is going to be disgusting. I hope we still have friends after this.” 

Kyungsoo half winced when he thought of all the people that might actually ditch Jongin for being with him. 

“Yeah, me too.” 

“Sehun is really excited for me. He sent me a picture of him and Yixing, and they’re both naked and high, so that’s a good sign.” 

“Definitely.” 

Kyungsoo opened his phone and ignored his own plethora of texts in favor of telling his mother he was alive and well. 

“Oh shit, look at this. Chanyeol just tagged me in a photo.” He held up a picture of Chanyeol and Baekhyun, also both topless and cuddling in a bed, making goofy faces and peace signs at the camera. “It says @kimkaaaaaa us too, Byun Baekhyun is mine, see you at the homecoming dance.”   
“What? Seriously?” Kyungsoo fumbled with his phone and found a barely coherent all caps text from Baekhyun as well as lots of pictures of him and Chanyeol being gross. “Oh my god that’s amazing. I’m so excited. Let’s send them a really gross picture of us making out.” 

“Soo you never stop surprising me. Okay, lets do it.” 

The picture they sent was sloppy and full of tongue. Baekhyun was disgusted. 

“The Instagram post has really happy comments from Hyejin and Byulyi.” 

“I got congratulations from Jongdae and Wheein. They’re on a breakfast date right now.” 

“Oh fuck, Minseok and Luhan got together last night too. I’ve started an Instagram trend. That explains why Luhan was always so happy to suck my dick.” 

“How many followers do you have?” 

“Like two thousand.” 

“I have thirty followers on Instagram.” 

“Damn. Killin it.” 

“You suck, leave me alone.” 

Jongin’s phone dinged furiously for a couple seconds. “Whoa, Jihyo might actually be more upset than Kris. She just sent me a fucking essay. I bet she and Momo sat there and wrote it together. I’ll read it later. Why on Earth is she even mad? This doesn’t affect her at all.” 

Kyungsoo went and followed Jongin on Instagram so he could read the comments on the picture. “Ooh. Somebody said they wished there was a dislike button.” 

“They can kiss my ass.” 

“Nope. Off limits. That’s my job.” 

Jongin kissed him again. 

“I hardly ever get mean comments. This is fun. They can’t even say I’m a slut this time—oh, never mind they did anyway.” 

“Assholes.” 

They both dealt with the outside world for a bit, but then Kyungsoo first and then Jongin eventually dropped their phones and cuddled instead. Kyungsoo played with Jongin’s hair and pet over all the pretty slopes of his body, and the sharp turn of his jaw. Jongin buried his face in Kyungsoo’s chest and scratched his blunt nails gently up and down Kyungsoo’s spine.

“I think I’m going to dye my hair back to brown.” 

“I am in full support. Will you wear glasses sometimes too?” 

Jongin laughed and nodded. 

Kyungsoo’s mother’s ringtone sounded, and Kyungsoo sighed and picked it up. 

“Hello mom.” 

“Are you ever coming home?” 

“I don’t really want to…” 

“Don’t wear out your welcome with Jongin.” 

“I don’t think he wants me to leave either.” Jongin shook his head and kissed Kyungsoo’s chest. “You were right, by the way.” 

“About what?” 

“He actually does like me. It’s crazy.” 

“Not that crazy,” Jongin muttered.

There was silence on the other end of the line. “Kyungsoo, do you have a boyfriend?” 

“I might have a boyfriend.” 

“He has a boyfriend,” said Jongin, a little louder, and Kyungsoo’s mom made a series of barely discernable shouts that included ‘I told you so’ and ‘fucking finally’ and ‘good for you both.’

“What time is it?” 

“It’s almost two in the afternoon.” 

“Shit. Okay, fine. I’ll be home soon. I just need to shower first.”

They showered one at a time to avoid getting distracted. Jongin had a nice shower. “I’m going to shower here a lot, okay? I like your shower.” 

“Please shower here every day. Twice a day. So I can watch. Are you sure you have to go home?” 

“Yeah, I need to go console my poor mother. She’s just so upset that her one and only son has been forever lost to the homosexual agenda.” He slid up into Jongin’s space and licked heavily past his lips, and Jongin leaned into him and moaned. “Besides,” he murmured into Jongin’s mouth with a smile, “I’ll see you tonight. I need to make sure my choir tux is clean.” 

“Choir tux? You can’t wear a choir tux to homecoming.” 

“Can too. It’s just a tux. I look good in it.” 

Jongin rolled his eyes and pulled Kyungsoo out the door towards the garage. “But this spring, I’m getting you a new tux for prom.” 

“Ooh, prom. Are you sure you want to go to that? We could skip it.” 

Jongin huffed. “Don’t joke about this stuff, Soo. How can I be prom king if I don’t go to prom?” 

“Ugh, go figure I finally get a boyfriend and he’s the kind of person that actually cares about this stuff.” 

“You’re going to have so much fun, Soo, you just wait.” 

Kyungsoo looked up at his adorable smiling boyfriend and pulled him down for a kiss. “I know I will, little bear. I’ll be with you.” 

Jongin smiled against his lips. “Soo?” 

“Nini?” 

“I’m so glad I found you.” 

Kyungsoo kissed him again, thinking of Jongdae and Wheein, of Byulyi and Hwasa, of Sehun and Yixing and all of the cheerleaders, even Kris and Junmyeon. He thought about Jihyo’s birthday party, The Float, the homecoming game where he cheered from the stands with the class he’d always been a part of but never belonged to before. He thought about Chanyeol and Baekhyun, about the way they couldn’t take their eyes off each other in their god costumes. And he thought about Jongin. About the cuddles, the kisses, the laughs, the massages, the face masks, the family dinners, the nicknames. His eyes. His gentle sincerity with which he did everything. The way he laughed. The way sunsets, bears, and togas would never be the same. 

“I’m glad I found you too. So glad. You have no idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! 
> 
> Please give me a follow on @M_M_Socks on twitter, and mitchmatchedsocks.tumblr.com. I love being able to pitch ideas at people who might read my stuff.


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